
/SS-i 




THE 



'MANIFEST DKSTINY' 



or TUB 



AMERICAN UNION. 



Rf;rKlMKl) P'ROM THE A\ KSTMINSTER REVIEW, 



N E ^^' Y O K K : 

PriJL[<UKn BV THE AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY, 
13K y.vss.vr SriiEKf. 

1^57. 



THE 



'MANIFEST DESTINY' 



OF TKB 



AMERICAN UNION. 



^ 



vUvvjLcujl; 



REPaiXTED FROM THE WESTMINSTBB REVIEW. 



\ 




^ 



N E W Y O 11 Iv 



rUBLISHED BY THE AMERICAN ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY, 
138 Nassau Street. 

1 857. 






a ' V 






V 



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MANIFEST DESTINY* 



AMERICAN UNIOX. 



The Empress of the French amused herself, a R w 
months since, with pretending to represent the 
alarms of the ladies of Europe about the comet 
which was to strike the earth in the course of June, 
1857. She played off a man of science at one of her 
evening receptions, by an affectation of panic about 
the comet, trying to make him ridiculous between his 
eager ness to show how absurd her idea was, and his 
deference for the person to whom he was speaking. 
What he endeavored to convey was the same com- 
fort that has been administered to timid English- 
women — that, in the first place, the comet would not 
come near us : and, in the next, that if it did ' strike 
the earth,' we should not find it out, but simply 
complain of misty weather. The Americans and 
their revolutions are illustrated by such cometary 
facts and fancies. An American, like an Englisli- 
man or a German, starts at the word revulution, dep- 
recates it, prays to heaven against it, disavows and 
denies it when it begins to envelope him, and, while 
he is in the very midst of it, insists that, however 
gloomy the political times are, he sees nothing like 
chaos and destruction, and cannot therefore be pass- 
ing through a revolution. 



/ 



In 17 GO, the accession of young King George was 
loyally celebrated in the colonies, and New England 
could not enough congratulate itself on belonging to 
Old England, with its train of great names and its 
treasures of liberty. The year after, the townsmen 
of those colonies were vexed and irritated by the 
new grievance of custom-house officers entering their 
abodes, by force of law, at all times of the day or 
night, in order to search for smuggled goods. This 
was done in virtue of Writs of Assistance, invented 
and issued for the purpose ; and they were the first- 
fruits of the determination of the British govern- 
ment to tax the colonies without their consent. 
They brought out an able lawyer on the platform of 
public affairs, whose voice of resistance echoed 
through the whole of the colonies. James Otis thus 
made proclamation of the war of ideas which issued 
in the independence of the United States. It was the 
impinging of the comet upon the regular old orb ; 
but nobody was aware of the moment of collision. 
Revolution ! O dear, no ! Nothing was further from 
people's thoughts than revolution. James Otis de- 
clared himself ready to sacrifice his very life in de- 
fence of colonial rights ; but the Americans were the 
most devoted subjects that the English monarchy 
could boast. Four years later, when the Stamp Act 
was to be enforced, the ominous step M'us taken of 
convening delegates from all the colonies, to consider 
how their liberties were to be sustained : and in 
the meantime, the Boston people hanged their ene- 
mies in elfigy, saw their courts closed rather than 
use the obnoxious stamps, and sent back sliips la- 
den with merchandise — resolved to endure the incon- 
veniences of the scarcity of such commodities, rath- 
er than to pay arbitrary import duties. They wore 
old clothes ; abolished the wearing of mourning at 



funerals ; killed no more lambs till there was wool 
enough, and brought other colonies into a non- 
importation compact. But nobody dreamed that 
this was revolution. AVhy, it was later than that — 
as late as September, 17C8 — that the convention of 
delegates from a hundred towns assembled in Bos- 
ton, humbly petitioned the King, and professed 
their loyalty in the strongest possible terms : — 

♦ "We hold that the sovereignty of his Majesty, King 
George III., is entire in all parts of the British Em- 
pire. God forbid that we should ever act or wish 
anything in repugnation of the same ! We appear as 
plain, honest men, humbly desiring peace and order ; 
and while the people ohserve a medium between ab- 
ject submission and a slavish stui>idity under grievous 
oppressions on one hand, and illegal attemjits to ob- 
tain relief on the other, and steadily persevere in con- 
stitutional ap})lications to recover their just righrsand 
liberties, they think they may promise themselves suc- 
cess.' 

What could be less like revolution than this? 
Yet there stands a significant entry in the diary of 
John Adams, when he had been listening to James 
Otis — ' At home with my family, thinking.' Even 
after the Boston Massacre, as it was called, when 
five lives were lost in a collision between British sol- 
diers and American citizens, the avowal of a desire 
to continue subject to British government is found 
in records of all public meetings ; though the grow- 
ing particularity^ may perhaps suggest that the idea 
of separation was becoming more familiar. In 1771, 
Dr. Franklin said that the seeds of disunion were 
being sown : but even he did not perceive that it was 
nearer harvest than seed-time. Even when the 
people were incited to emulate the courage and faith 
of their f.ith?rs, Avho ' made a settlement on bare 
creation,' being not afraid of poverty, but disdain- 
ing slavery, all resistance was to be conducted ' un- 



der the shield of the British Constitution, and in 
strict adherence to their charter.' Towards the 
close of 1773, when night fell oq a day of trouble 
and vague portents, a mother and her young chil- 
dren, in the neighborhood of Boston, listened for the 
return of the head of the household, who was later 
than usual. His wife helped him off with his coat, 
and brought his slippers ; and when the children 
were gone to bed, she showed her husband how 
well it was that it was none but herself who took 
charge of his shoes. They were full of tea ! But 
for this, even she would never have known so much 
as one of the fifty men who, with coats wrong side 
out, and covered faces, threw the tea into the dock. 
But this couple were as far as any one else from 
dreaming that they were helping to enact a revolu- 
tion, though they were within three years of the 
Declaration of Independence ! It now began to be 
agreed, it is true, ' that if they would maintain 
their rights and liberties, they must fight for them' : 
and they did fight for them so soon as the spring of 
1775 ; but it is on record that the citizens who ral- 
lied and marched the militia after the skirmishes of 
Lexino-ton and Concord, and the women who nursed 
the wounded, had, even then, no notion that they 
were in the middle of revolution. They were as 
ready as ever to start back from the word ; and they 
went on supposing, as they had done for fifteen years, 
that matters would be accommodated, and that they 
and their children should live and die under their 
charters, as their fathers had done before them. They 
were then actually the nucleus of the dreadful com- 
et, while they declared that their atmosphere was 
too gloomy for them to see far, but that such a thing 
as a comet was certainly nowlicre within ken. 
Our readers are by this time making comparisons, 



no doubt, bctwtx^n tlic incidcntflandfo('lin|:plK'lonping 
to tlio first Amcricun ri'Voliitiuu, and tliow wliich 
hiivo fur soiiu! timo jiast, and with |HTjM'tijal in- 
croasin;; fort'o and rh'anuss, indicate*! ai second. Wo 
bolievc wo have the nnans ol sh<iwin;^ that a second 
p;r»'at revolution is not only aji] roaeliinj;, hut actu- 
ally far advance*!, and that some of the winst and 
Ixjst of Amoricun citizcnB have so (iir |>viifited hy the 
lessons of their fatliers as to 1k» fully awan^ of their 
real p»sition, thou<i;h a vast niajt»rity still insist, as 
the new President did in his inauguration address, 
that ' all is calm,' because his party has carried the 
election. During the fifteen years preceding; tho 
st^pjiration of tho American colonies, almost every 
body supposed, as often as there was a lull, that 
matters were settled ; and in like manner the Presi- 
dent and all commonplace pw)ple among tho nnllions 
whom ho addressed in March last, are satisfied that 
the declaration of the p<dl was sufficient to annul all 
the controversies and Cidlisions which had lately 
causal tho Uni(jn to ring with threats and promises 
of dissolution on either hand. "When ol)6erver8 
stroke their chins, and renuirk that the state of 
things looks very like revolution, the old re])iy comes 
up, ' Revolution ! dear, no ! nothing of the sort! 
The Union is so dear to the American people, that 
no lapse of ages will dissolve it.' And the laugh 
raised against such observers is at least as contempt- 
uous as any ridicule directed against trembling in- 
quirers after the comet of June, 1857. 

We are glad to see, by Mr. Chambers's latest 
work,* that he has awakened from the state of un- 
consciousness of the crisis with which, like most Eu- 
ropeans, he was inilvted by the Americans while on 

* Atnerican Slavery and Color. By William Cham- 
bers, author of 'Thinj^s as they arc in America.' 
London : W. & K. Cluunbcrs. 1857. 



8 

their territory. His first impressions were of the 
brilliant features of the destiny of the great Repub- 
lic. Retrospect and reflection at home have had the 
happy effect of revealing to him the awful peril 
which underlies the apparent jDrospcrity, and the 
extent of the fatal barbarism which threatens the 
whole structure of American civilization. With a 
candor highly honorable to him, Mr. Cham- 
bers puts the public in immediate possession of 
his latest convictions, and his work is just the 
compilation that is wanted for use in England, 
as far as the historical and statistical particulars 
go. AYe still observe the defect which was so 
strikino; in Mr. Chambers's former work — his in- 
sensibilty, to the character and function of the x\mer- 
ican abolitionists ; and this is to be regretted, not 
only for the sake of justice, but because the charac- 
ter and function of that body are indisputably the 
leading element in the question — What is to become 
of a republic laden with the curse of slavery, in an 
age too advanced for it ? Mr. Chambers despairs of 
the result : he sees none but a calamitous issue from 
the crisis. No other conclusion is possible to him ; 
but his conclusion would be different, and his views 
infinitely more cheerful, if he were but aware of the 
history, quality, and actual influence of a body, 
•with whom it is clear he had not only no intercourse 
when in the United States, but whom he has yet to 
learn to estimate. To state the problem with a curt 
dismissal of the abolitionists, because they are few, 
is like the account Avhich might have been given of 
the disturl^ances of the Church three centuries 
ago — Luther and his disciples l)eing passed over, be- 
cause they were only a handful of men. This is an 
omission which largely affects Mr. Chambere's conclu- 
sions, of course ; but, this caution being given, the 



book limy bo used with confiilonco, and will, wo 
trust, be extcnsivily und tliaiikr»illy rrml, for the 
Seiko of the mass of facts which lu> has broiif^ht to- 
gi'thcr in a statement aliuo^t as alanniii;^ to the Kn;;- 
lish jiiililic, who can say what tiny h-il about 
American destinies, as to Americans, who cannot, 
under their present circumstaiues, emjl<»y t (joal 
freiHlom of sj)eech. 

A few lines will indicate sometliiii<!; of the impor- 
tance of the clement omitted liy Mr. Chambers; 
and if they should snjruist to him the one remain- 
ing duty which would complete his ;j;ood work — 
that of studjing the hist(.ry and function of the ab- 
olitionists, — we have no doubt that the tyime candor 
■which admitted of such progress as he has already 
made, will lead him on to conclusions more coiis<da- 
tory and animating than he can at present form 
in regard to the issue of the American struggle. 

To the abolitionists jroper belongs the honor of 
all the ameliorations in th.e condition of the slaves 
of the South, and of the free blacks of the North, 
for the last quarter of a century. They fixed tho 
attenti(jn of the world on the treatment of the slaves, 
and thereby improved that treatment, — the slave- 
holders being at least as sensitive to the world's 
opinion as other classes of their countrymen. In 
the North, so far from deserving the reproach which 
Mr. Chambers directs against them, of inhuman and 
practical aversion to the colored race, they have 
earned the opprobrious title of ' amalganiationists' 
from the South by their success in t)]iening to the 
free blacks the colleges, the ])ulp.its, and the com- 
mon schools of their comniunities, as well as the 
steamboat and the omnilnis, the concert room and 
church-sittings, with collateral benefits in jtropor- 
tion. By their stout warfare with the prejudice of 



10 

color, they have brought on tliemselves a long series 
of fearful persecutions. Their houses have been 
laid in ruins, their public halls burnt, their children 
excommunicated, their lives threatened and embit- 
tered with insult. They have watched M'ith increas- 
ing vigilance over such liberties as were provided by 
the Constitution, and so analyzed that Consti- 
tution as to prove to all minds that it must be 
amended before the Republic can ever again be tran- 
quillized. By this small band of devoted and enlight- 
ened men and women, the conscience of the nation 
has been kept alive, and the country has been revo- 
lutionized, thus far, without violence and bloodshed, 
by the force of reason and conscience. The revolu- 
tionary crisis being (as is agreed on all hands) inev- 
itable, its being accomplished by other means than 
a servile war will be due to the abolitionists, if tliat 
fearful catastrophe should be indeed escaped. Super- 
ficial observers, and strangers indoctrinated by the 
slaveholders and their creatures, the Colonization ^ o- 
ciety, have been apt till lately to despise the aboli- 
tionists on account of the smallness of their num- 
bers, and their severance from all political parties ; 
but a deeper sagacity and the most ordinary impar- 
tiality will discern that these two particulars are the 
very secret of their influence. It is because they 
know that political factions can never regenerate the 
public that they keej) aloof from parties, and thus 
maintain their ground and their power through all 
political changes : and it is through their al)stinence 
from intrigue on the one hand, and violence on the 
other, that their numbers must ever be small. To 
obtain any great accession of numbers, they must 
lower their standard, which they are not likely to 
do after a quarter of a century of severer temptation 
than can beset them again, and after achieving an 



11 

amount of success wliich rendore tlicir principle and 
procedure unquestionahle by all rational persons who 
understand the case. The ranj;<5 of their services 
lias hecMi -wide and various. The condition of the 
slaves, in regard to material treutiuent, ha« been 
greatly equalized and improved l>y the attention of 
the world l)ein<; fixed upon their case ; the false pre- 
tences of all dishonest parties have been continu- 
ously exposed ; the Church, the judiciary, the legis- 
latures, and all leading nun in each dejiartment, 
have been tested, and their true quality exhii>itcd. 
The worldlincss of the commercial North has been 
rebuked as eff -etually as the despotism of the slave- 
holding South : the whole country has been roused 
to a sense of the approaching crisis ; and, while the 
field has been cleared for the conflict, the slave pop- 
ulation has been deterred from insurrection. Be- 
fore 1832, when the first abolitionist spoke bis first 
word, the slave insurrections averaged twelve in a 
year ; whereas, from 1832 to 185G, there was no 
insurrection whatever. The slaves were aware that 
their cause was in better hands than their own, and 
they waited patiently till, in the course of the elec- 
t'nm of last year, Southern men themselves impru- 
dently identified the success of Fremont with the ab- 
olition of slavery, and thus, according to their own 
confession, made themselves answerable for a partial 
rising. Even so bare a recapitulation as we have 
given of the services of the abolitionists may be 
welcome to the readers of Mr. Chambers's latest 
work, as opening some prospect of a good and hap- 
py issue where to hiui all appears perplexing and 
desperate. The ten righteous men, having wrought 
for so long, may save the city yet. 

Before we survey the recent transactions of the 
respective sections and States of the Union, it may 



12 

be well to denote the various parties concerned in 
the existing struggle and its issue. We do not 
mean to waste any space in describing the political 
parties wliose very denominations are a ludicrous 
puzzle to strangers. Such parties rise and disap- 
pear like bubbles on a turbulent stream ; so that 
they are hardly worth a strTlnger's attention in or- 
dinary times. But, at present, scarcely any of them 
appear to exist. The current of events is too strong 
for them ; the times are too grave for political skir- 
mishing ; and the whole people are massed in sec- 
tions characterized ])y distinctions which cannot be 
admitted and discussed in a day. 

The leading sections are the North and the South, 
of course ; but it is a mistake to suppose that the 
division of the men is as clear as the distinction of 
the policy. The South has a policy ; and as it is a 
slaveholding policy, the very small body of slave- 
holders usurps the title of the Southern section. Of 
the 27,000,000 of inhabitants of the United States, 
less than 350,000 are slaveholders in any sense ; and 
it is computed that, of these, not more than 1000 
are indoctrinated and zealous slaveholders. Of 
whom, then, docs the so-called ' South ' really con- 
sist? There arc, as we have said, 350,000 slave- 
holders ; and if their connections of every sort are 
included, the entire oligarchy cannot consist of more 
than 2,000,000. Then there are, at least, 4,000,000 
slaves. The slaves being double the number of the 
rulino- class is a formida])le circumstance in itself ; 
and it becomes (»r proportionate importance to learn 
what tlie remaining element is. That element it 
has been the policy of the South to keep out of view, 
and till lately it has succeeded : but the last census 
revealed the fact that the ' mean-white ' population 
of the South — the non-slavcholding whites — consti- 



13 

tuto no less than Pcvcn-tenths of tlio wliolo fn-e pop- 
ulation of tin' t^lavo StntcH. In tin' ' Ilintory of 
Anu'iicjvn t'oin promises,' this class ol' inhabitants is 
thus described : — 

•"Wherever plnvcry exists, labor becomes, of course, 
n ba(l2;e of deprndation. In America, no class — not 
even the slaves — are so utterly de<:raded ns tlic whites, 
>vho, in slave States, b.ave no proj erty, and nuist live 
by work or thel't. 'Jhe ])lanters arc always tryini; to 
fjet rid of them, as daii^crons and vexatious nci<;h- 
bors ; and these ]>oor wretehes — the descendajits, for 
tlic most ])art, of the jTond colonists of two centuries 
ai^fo — are redu<'efl to sell their last foot of land, and l)e 
driven forth to live wbere tliey can. They arc re- 
ceivers of stolen i^oods from phmtations, aiul tralKck- 
ers in bad whiskey, doinj:j no honest work that tliey 
can avoid, and being employed by nobody who can 
get work done by any other hands. Few of thera 
can read ; most of them drink ; and the missionaries 
report tV.em as savage to an un]Miralleled degree, — 
many haviiig never heard of God or of Jesus Christ. 
Of this class are the " .*^and-hillers," the " Clay-eat- 
ers," and other fearful a. normal classes of residents 
in the slave States. Strangers hear, in visits to the 
plar.tations, of these ♦• mean-whites" as the supreme 
nuisance of the South, but are led to supjjose that 
they are a mere handful of ])eoi)le, able to do a good 
deal of mischief by tampering with and corrupting 
the slaves. The la^t census, however, reveals the tre- 
mendous fact, that these •' mean-whites " are seven- 
tenths of the whole white population of the slave 
States." — p. 29. 

The renders of Mrs. Stowe's ' Dred ' need no fur- 
ther representation of the mode of life of these peo- 
ple ; and the facts of their position, — their num- 
bers, poKSi^ssions, occupations, and social standing, — 
are exhibited with fullness and precision in Mr. 
Olmsted's work on ' The Seaboard Slave States.' 

Here, then, we liave the three classes which con- 
stitute the population of the South : — 1st. The 
owners of property and their families, comjKJSed of 
a small caste of 2,(HH),0()0 of persons ; 2d. Their 



14 

slaves, now more than double the number of the ol- 
ij^archj ; and, 3d, the poor whites, wlio have nei- 
ther property nor power to labor, and who outnum- 
ber the other two classes together. Till very rc- 
C3ntly, these were literally all : for free negroes are 
excluded from slave States by law and usage, and in 
fact ; and white Libor cannot co-exist with black. 
But the eagerness of the Southern oligarchy to ex- 
tend the area of slave States has led to the unex- 
pected issue of slavery being stopped in its spread to 
the south west by the intervention of a substantial 
industrial body of immigrants. Mr. Olmsted's vol- 
ume on ' Texas ' informs us that the number of 
Germans in that State, at the beginning of the pres- 
ent year, is computed at 35,000, ' of whom about 
25,000 are settled in the German and half-German 
counties of Western Texas.' 

' Among the Germans of the "West (of Texas) we 
met not one slave-owner; and there are not probably 
thirty among them all who have purchased slaves. 
The whole capital of most of them lies in their hands ; 
and with these, every black hand comes into tangible 
and irritating competition. "With the approacli of 
the slave, too, comes an implied degradation, attach- 
ing itself to all labor of the hands. The planter is by 
no means satisfied to find himself in the neighborhood 
of tlie German. lie is not only by education uncon- 
genial, as well as suspicious of danger to his property, 
already somewhat precariously near the frontier, hut 
finds, in his turn, a direct comi)etition of interests, 
which can be readily comprehended in figures. The 
ordinary Texan wages for an able field-hand are 
$200. The German laborer hires at $150, and 
clothes and insures himself. The planter for one 
hand must have paid $1,000. The German with this 
sum can hire six hands. It is here the contact galls.' 
— A Journey through Texas, p. 432. 

The reader of Mr. Olmsted's charming narrative 
of liis experience among the German settlers will 
need no arguments to convince him that any conflict 



between free and tsl.ivc labor on tliat fair litld must 
issue in the defeat of the latter. Mr. Ohnsted sjiys : 

'I have licon thus ]iarticular in describing the con- 
dition and attitude of tlic (icrmans, as the ixisition in 
"ivliicli foitvnie lias placed them, in the very line of 
advance of slavery, is ])eculiar ; and, po far as it bears 
upon the (luestions of the continued extension of c(jt- 
ton limits, the cajjacity of whites for independent a<^- 
riculturc at the South, and the relative piofit and 
vigor of free and slave labor, is of nati )nal interest.' 
—p. 4i0. 

ITiTe, then, is a fourth element of Southern pop- 
ulation, small at present, but steadily inen'asing, 
and admirably placed for driving back slavery from 
the south-western frontier. The planters fear and 
hate this element ; the negroes love it, as far as they 
recognise it ; and the ' mean-whites ' hardly know 
■what to make of it. The Germans, meantime, 
have no liking for any of the three classes of neigh- 
bors. 

How are the 17,000,000 of the North massed in 
regard to political questions? Their numbers alone 
■would seem to give them power to carry any point 
in which they believed the welfare of the Republic 
to be involved ; and when it is remembered that the 
suflVage is buna fide in the Northern States, while 
in the South three fifths of the slaves count as vot- 
ers by a constitutional fiction, strangers may well 
wonder how it is that the freemen of the North, be- 
ing much more than double the number of those of 
the other section, permit any conflict which can en- 
danger their country. Hitherto, it seems to have 
been the business (;f the slaveholding aristocracy to 
govern the Eepublic for their own purposes, in vir- 
tue pf their compact organization, their strong and 
united will, and their acconjplishments as men of 
letters and leisure ; whereas the freemen of the North 



16 

have had only a negative policy with regard to the 
great subject on which the South has a positive one ; 
and the Ticxt great question, that of protection and 
froe-trade, is one which is supposed to render the 
commercial and manufacturing portion of tlie Re- 
public dependent on the producing section, — the 
merchants and manufacturers on the cotton-growers. 
Hence, mainly, it is, that the vast body of free, in- 
dustrious and prosperous inhabitants of the Union 
are regarded only as a party, and a subordinate par- 
ty, in the p(»litical history of the country. It is 
obvious that whenever the f vestige of the governing 
party is shaken, and the bulk of the free population 
is fairly roused to honest political exertion, the 
Constitution of the United Statcsmay become what- 
ever they choose to make it, l)y means peaceable in 
proportion to the preponderant force of numbers. 
But they are not roused to honest political exertion ; 
and hence it is tliat, though the Southern oligarchy 
are deteriorated in a1)ility, degraded in morals, and 
brutalized in manners, as a necessary consequence of 
a protraction of slave institutions into an age too 
advanced for them, their al)l('r and more civilized 
fellow-countrymen of the North are involved in a 
revolutionary struggle, instead of carrying their 
government up to tlie head of the free governments 
of the world. This immense population, which 
lives in subservience to half a million of fellow-citi- 
zens, consists of hundreds of thousands of merchants, 
millions of land-owners, innumeraVde clergy of all 
denominations, multitudes of other professional 
men, large corporate bodies of manufacturers, and 
crowds of individual producers in all crafts. The 
only part of the 17,000,000 of the North not includ- 
ed in this mass of freemen are the two classes of im- 
migrants and free colored people. The latter are 



17 

few, though inoro numorous tli:in tho shivolioMors. 
They are somewhat under hall" a uiillion, antl they 
have no political weight at present, except in an in- 
direct way, hy their political conipetcncy and rights 
being one of the questions of the controversy. Till 
quite recently, the full inipt)rtance of the immigrant 
element of the population was not recognised, though 
the slave States have manifested a growing j<'al- 
ousy of the labor-power by which the su])eriority of 
the North in wealth and prosperity has been creat- 
ed. The formation of the Know-Nothing party — a 
Southern device — was the first great recognition of 
the vital importance of the foreign industrial cle- 
ment, — being neither more nor less than an admis- 
sion tiiat slavery and immigration could not co-exist 
in the Republic. A similar testimony was afforded 
when, on the disappearance of the Know^-Xothing 
party, some Southern governors and legislatures 
opened the fresh project of a renewal of the African 
slave trade. The Northern States have borne the 
Rime testimony by the formation of the Emigrant 
Aid Societies ; the object of which is not so much 
the keeping up of the supply of laborers in the old 
States, as the settlement of fresh territory, — at 
once preventing the extension of slavery over new 
soil, and giving the benefit of the increase of pro- 
duction to the commercial North, instead of the ag- 
ricultural South. This important body of citizens 
— the European element — consists chiefly at present 
of Germans, whom we have just seen actually turn- 
ing back the tide of slavery on its remotest frontier, 
and who afford a good rampart on the Northern 
frontier, — in Illinois, Indiana, and the back of 
Pennsylvania and New York. The distinctive and 
highly useful characteristic of the Germans is, that 
they are commonly capitalists and laborers in one. 



18 

So are thellungiarians, Belgians, Dutch and Swedes,' 
while the Irish afford an clement more resembling 
the slave labor of the South than any other that can 
be found in the free States. The wliolo body is, in 
combination, one of vast and growing consequence. 
Lastly, there is the very small body of Abolition- 
ists, properly so called. In number, probably much 
under one in a thousand of the citizens, standing 
outside of political life and action altogether, and 
combined by no other bond than that of hostility to 
an institution which every body about them osten- 
sibly condemns, they make no show to account for 
their importance. We do not include under the 
term any political party which assumes any conve- 
nient portion of their doctrine ; because it is clear 
to all impartial persons that the great problem now 
harassing the Republic cannot be solved by the as- 
cendancy of any political party. We are, therefore, 
classing the Free-Soil party, and every other tran- 
sient embodiment of the great difficulty, with the 
general mass of the Northern population ; and when 
we speak of the Abolitionists, we mean the perma- 
nent, small, active, agitating anti-slavery body, to 
which the South attributes all its woes, and which 
really is answerable for the critical condition of the 
question at this day. There is no truth in the 
Southern accusation, that the Abolitionists tamper 
with the slaves, or countenance violence in any 
form, or under any pretence. The great majority 
of them are non-resistants, and moral means are 
their only weapons ; but they are, as tlie Slave 
Power says, the antagonistic power by which the 
destinies of the Republic have been pledged to a 
principle, as in the days of their fathers, and at 
whose instigation the conflict must be carried 
through, and the fate of the nation decided. They 



19 

arc the actual rcvolut ionizers of the Republic, wliilo 
for the most part pi'aco-nu'n in the doctrinal sonso 
oi' the term. The dilTfrence between them and tho 
amateur peace-men of some European soeictifs in, 
that they do not consider the shedding of hlood tho 
greatest of evils, l)ut simply an inexpedient method 
of prosecuting their aim ; and thus they arc not 
bound to ' cry peace where there is no peace,' but 
will not cease to aji-itate while tiio wron*; is unrcc- 
tified ; and, at tlie same time, their mode of pro- 
cedure is of inealeulahle value where the solution to 
be apprehended is that of servile war on the one 
hand, and a military despotism on the other. 

These, then, are the sections of the population, 
North and South, among and by whom the second 
great American revolution is to be wrought out. 
AVhat ha^ been done up to this time? What is 
doing now? By what phenomena are we justified 
in speaking of American affairs as in a revolutiona- 
ry state at this moment? We will cast a glance 
round that great circle of grouped sovereignties, and 
see wliat social symptoms are exhibited from point 
to point within the frontier. For the history of the 
question on which the fate of the Union hangs, we 
have no room ; and we cannot do better than to re- 
fer our readers to the sketches offered in the works 
of Mr. Chambers and Mrs. Harriet Martineau. The 
economical condition and much of tlie social char- 
acter of the slave States are fully and most ably ex- 
hibited in Mr. Olmsted's two volumes. The very 
high quality of lx)th these books of Mr. Olmsted 
sustains the eminent reputation of American trav- 
els, — a branch of literature in wliich our cousins of 
the Northern States excel most otlier men ; and we 
should enjoy the task of justifying our admiration 
in this case by a full review of Mr. Olmsted's works ; 



20 

but our immediate object is to mark the revolution- 
ary indications of the country and time. A brief 
and cursory survey of existing affairs will, we think, 
convince all observers that to deny that the Ameri- 
can Republic is, and has long been, passing through 
a revolution, is to be very like the inexperienced 
generation who heard the firing at Lexington and 
Concord, and saw the tea shot into the harbor, with- 
out any notion that the colonies had cut themselves 
adrift from the mother-country. 

The survivors of the founders of the Republic be- 
lieved — we now see how wisely — that the first move 
in the second revolution was made in 1820. Thought- 
less persons wondered at the solemnity of their lan- 
guage ; but time is fully justifying it. In 1787, 
when there was a distribution of lands belonging to 
Virginia, the establishment of slavery on new terri- 
tory' was prohibited ; and nobody called in question 
the power of the National Congress of that day to 
impose such a prohibition. During the thirty fol- 
lowing years, there was no dispute on the point ; 
and it was with dread and surprise that, in 1819, 
the venerable statesmen of the Revolution began to 
apprehend the course which the South is following 
out at this moment. It was on the occasion of the 
Missouri Compromise that the doubt was insinuated 
whether Congress could impose conditions on the 
admission of new States into the Union. In the 
' History of American Compromises,' we find an 
account of the emotions excited by an anticipation 
of what we are seeing now : — 

' The pn^hibition of slavery on the distribution of 
the Virginia lands in 1787 proves that the power was 
no matter of doubt at that time ; yet it was now 
contested, in the teeth of as many as survived of the 
very men who had made the Constitution, and dis- 
tributed tho lands. The conflict was fierce ; and it 



21 

embittcrctl the latter days of the patriots who yet f^ur- 
rivcd— Juffersoii, Jay, Adams, ^larslinll, and inrlccd 
all the old politiial heroes. '• From the battle of lUin- 
ker Hill to the Treaty of Paris," says Jeffirson to 
Adams, •• we never liad so ominous a question. 1 
thank (rod I shall not live to witness its issue." 
Again, after the eompromise — " This momentous cjucs- 
tion, like a tire-bell in the ni^^ht, awakened and filled 
me with terror. I considered it at once as the knell 
of the l^nion. It is hushed, indeed, for the moment. 
But this is a reprieve only — not a tinal sentence. A 
geog;raplueal line, coineidinj; with a marked princi- 
ple, moral or political, once conceived and held up to 
the anjjjry passions of men, will never be obliterated ; 
and every new irritation will mark it deejier and 
deeper." Jay wrote — '• I concur in the opinion that 
slavery ousht not to l>e introduced nor permitted in 
any new .States ; and that it ouj^ht to be gradually 
diminished, and tinally abolished, in all of them." 
The most cautious of politicians, Judge Story, never 
threw himself into any great public (luestionbut once, 
and tliis was the occasion. II(; spoke in public on 
behalf of the absolute prohibition of slavery, by ex- 
press Act of Congress, in all the Territories, and 
against the admission of any new slaveholding State, 
except on the unalterable condition of the abolition of 
slavery. He grounded his argument on the Declar- 
ation of Independence and on the Constitution of the 
United States, as well as on the radical princii)le of 
Kepublicanism. "When the result was trembling in 
the balance, and the issue seemed to depend on the 
votes of six waverers, Judge Story predicted a settle- 
ment by compromise — a present yielding to the South, 
on conditi(jn tliat it should be for the last time; this 
•' last time," however, involving the admission of the 
two waiting States, whose climate and ])roductions 
afforded an excuse for slavery, to which Mi^souri could 
not pretend. A short and pregnant sentence, in a 
letter of Judge Story's, shows that a new light had 
begun to break in upon him at Washington, which 
might make liim glad of such a eompromise, as a 
means of gaining time for the preservation of the 
Union. After relatisig the extraordinary pretensions 
of the South, he concludes tlius: — " 15ut of tliis say 
but little; I will talk about it on my returii : but our 
friends in general are not ripe for a disclosure of the 
great truths respecting Virginia policy.' 



22 

For thirty-seven years, the great constitutional 
question has come up again on all marked occasions, 
and under many phases, till the present year, when 
all the conditions of revolution are fulfilled, and 
there appears to he no escape from the alternative of 
an overthrow of the original Constitution of the 
Republic, or its preservation by means of a separa- 
tion of the States. To this issue the recent decision 
of the Supreme Court in the case of Dred Scott 
seems to have brought the great controversy, which 
may be briefly thus described. 

In the original draft of the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, there is a paragraph which was struck out 
as unnecessary. It charged George III. with the 
crime of the slave trade, among the other offences 
there set forth in solemn order. Mr. Chambers saw 
this document in the rooms of the American Philo- 
sophical Society at Philadelphia ; and he naturally 
considers it ' the greatest archaeological curiosity ' 
that he saw in the country. When that paper was 
drawn up, slavery existed in all the States ; but its 
abolition was so near and certain in many of them, 
and the universal dislike of it appeared to be so 
strong, that even the far-sighted Franklin believed 
that it would soon be got rid of, with other mis- 
chiefs imposed by the connection with England. 
We have Lafayette's testimony, (given in grief at 
the bad spirit which had grown up between 1776 
and 1830,) that during tlie revolutionary war, there 
was no distinction between the blacks and the whites 
as soldiers and citizens. Soldiers of the two races 
bivouacked together, eating out of the same dish, as 
well as fighting side by side : and in the towns, the 
free colored men were citizens, in every sense as good 
as the whites. Even so late as 1814, nearly the 
same position was held hy the black soldiers, as is 



23 

proved by Ocnoral Jackson's addrosa to them a few 
weeks before the ])attle of New Orleans. ' As sons 
of freedom,' the General wrotii, ' you are called upon 
to defend our most inestimable blessing. As Amer- 
icans, your country looks with confidence for a val- 
orous support,' Sec. In a subsequent address, tho 
recognition of the citizenship of the negroes was as 
amjde as possible. ' When on the banks of tho 
Mobile,' he says, ' I called you to take up arras, in- 
viting you to partake the perils and glories of your 
white fellow-citizens, I expected much from you,' 
Sec. When the Americans began to govern them- 
selves, therefore, and for long after, the condition of 
the negro race was this : Those who were slaves 
were rapidly obtaining freedom by the abolition of 
slavery in Sbitc after State ; all importation of ne- 
groes was for))idden after 1808 ; and the emanci- 
pated slaves became citizens iu the fullest sense of 
the term. While the eradication of slavery was 
supposed to be thus proceeding in the settled States, 
the institution was excluded from new territory by 
express provision, as in the case of the distribution 
of the Virginia lands, under the compact of 1787. 
The mischief and disgrace of the institution were 
charged upon Great Britain, fairly and sincerely ; 
and there was more or less reason for the excuse of 
inherited crime up to 1820, when the Missouri 
Compromise destroyed it, by unnecessarily introduc- 
ing slavery into the State of Missouri, where it was 
not justified by circumstiince of climate, or any 
over[)owering expediency whatever. Still, it was 
the practice to speak of slavery as an evil and a dis- 
grace, and to cast the blame of it on England which 
introduced it, till the repeal of the Misriuuri Com- 
promise in 1855, by which the institution was 
adopted as the substantial policy of theKepublic, to 



24 

the support of which every State of the Union should 
be pledged. American ambassadors in Europe, and 
the entertainers of European travellers in the United 
States, were wont to speak plaintively and depre- 
catingly of the misfortune they had inherited from 
the mother-country. But for seven years paut — we 
may say for thirty-seven years past — the excuse has 
been invalid ; and now the nation, if judged by the 
action of the federal government, proclaims to the 
world that ' slavery is the corner-stone of the Re- 
public,' as Governor M'Duffie of South Carolina 
declared it to be, when few had courage to make 
such an avowal. 

It was in a continental or national Congress — the 
last — that the prohibition to introduce slavery into 
new territory was passed in 1787 ; but the acts of 
that Congress were sanctioned and adopted by the 
Federal Congress, without dispute or demur, for a 
long course of years. We have seen how great was 
the shock to the surviving statesmen of the Revolu- 
tion when the right of that Congress to rule the 
conditions of new States was brought into question 
in 1820. The controversy was suspended by a com- 
promise, which, by excluding slavery from all terri- 
tory north of a certain line, licensed it in all ter- 
ritory south of that line. Ten years after that com- 
promise, the Abolitionists began to see how^ fearful 
were the condition and prospects of their country, if 
slavery should continue to impoverish the soil of half 
the States, and to undermine the liberties and cor- 
rupt the morals of the whole ; and they have worked 
devotedly, and made the most magnanimous sacri- 
fices, during the intervening quarter of a century, 
to revolutionize their country by moral agitation, 
with a steady avoidance of political movement, in 
order to intercept the last fatal result of a servile 
war, bringing on a total national overthrow. 



25 

Though there •wore more signs of political dis- 
turbance prior to 1850 than wo have space U) detail 
— such as the suppression of tho right of petition 
to Congress, the violences inflicted with impunity 
on the Abolitionists, and the prostitution of the 
n)ail service, — there was a sufficient external quiet 
and decorum preserved to cover up the wounds of 
the Republic from foreign observation, and to excuse 
timid or indifferent citizens from appearing to see 
that any thing was wrong. The warnings of the 
Abolitionists were troublesome and vexatious ; the 
rebukes of Dr. Channing were smiled at as coming 
from a mere divine, who could be no judge of prac- 
tical affairs. The legislation of 1850 was a thunder- 
clap to many who had been apathetic before ; but 
its portentous character was not estimated till the 
broad tokens of revolution were displayed in the 
leading State of the Union. They might not be 
recognised as revolution, any more than the pouring 
out of tea and of blood on a former occasion : but 
they were something so serious as to rouse and pre- 
pare the general mind for the yet more critical man- 
ifestations of the present day. 

When the Fugitive Slave Bill passed, there were 
about 9000 persons of color in Massachusetts. — 
Within three days after its passage was known, for- 
ty of them were in flight for Canada, though le- 
gally protected by the Constitution of the sovereign 
State in which they were living. One day in May, 
1854, the old Faneuil Hull in Boston rang with 
speeches which were as revolutionary as any which 
had ever been uttered there before, on occasion of 
the arrest of Burns, a fugitive slave, whose liberty 
was guaranteed by the laws of the State, while an- 
nihilated by the new federal law. Nothing can bo 
more revolutionary than a direct collision between 
2 



26 

a law of the Union and a law of any State ; and 
nothing can be more absolutely opposed than those 
laws in the present ease. The court-house at Bos- 
ton was surrounded by a chain ; and soldiers were 
marched through the streets, under the apprehen- 
sion of a rescue of a kidnapped slave. Tlie free 
colored people plied a battering-ram against the 
door of the court-house, and obtained entrance. 
The alarm-bell of the city conveyed news of the tu- 
mult to the shipping in the harbor, and the villages 
around. The affrighted claimant of the negro 
would have gladly backed out of his enterprise, and 
taken the price of the man whicli was offered by the 
authorities ; but orders from Washington forbade 
him to withdraw, as the President was resolved to 
bring the dispute to an issue on this case. During 
the interval of two days before the trial, all inter- 
est in other bul^iness was suspended. From every 
pulpit on the Sunday, prayers were requested ' on 
behalf of a brother in sore distress.' In the re- 
motest parts of the State, handbills were circulated, 
imploring the yeomanry to repair to Boston, and see 
the issue. ' Come, but this time with only such 
arms as God gave you.' Multitudes came; and 
those who remained at home, organized township 
meetings, where resolutions of the strongest charac- 
ter were passed. As the pleadings in the court- 
house were drawing to a close, cannon were planted 
in the square, the military lined the way to the har- 
bor, and a small steamer skulked about there, try- 
ing to find a place at some wharf. This showed 
what the result was to be. The citizens were not 
prepared to resist it ; and their want of concert and 
preparation has been bitterly mourned by them ever 
since. What they could do at the moment, they 
did. Twenty thousand of them lined the foot-pave- 



27 

ment, to give their greeting to the fettered black as 
he was marched down to the harhor. The shops 
■were shut, the balconies were filled ])y women in 
mourning ; and at the moment when the doom was 
pronounced, the flags of the Union and of the State 
were lowered, hung with l)laek. There were thn.'e 
B,)unds strangely mingled during that march. The 
bells were tolling ; and there was one carriage — 
the gun which the artillery drew. Another sound 
completely overpowered l)()th, — an ear-piercing hiss 
from the entire population, and loudest from the 
merchants assembled on the steps of the Exchange. 
Burns was carried off by means of the unconstitu- 
tional submission of the authorities. While w^e 
write, we find that one of them. Commissioner Lor- 
ing, has at length undergone retribution for his con- 
duct on the occasion. He braved public opinion, at 
the time and afterwards, in reliance on the support 
of the President and the Cabinet ; he ignored all 
demands that he should resign ; he strove to appear 
unmoved by gifts of purses, containing ' thirty pieces 
of silver ' ; and he, no doubt, trusted to wear out 
his enemies by passive endurance of their scorn. 
But they had all his perseverance, and a better 
cause. They did not choose that a man should hold 
ofl&ce after having decided against the laws of his 
State, when those laws were in collision with new 
enactments of Congress declared unconstitutional 
by the best lawyers in the country ; and they have 
never ceased to work at the deposition of Loring 
from his office of Judge of Probate. He w^as dis- 
placed in May last.* 

* So it was understood in Boston as elsewhere ; but 
Governor Gardner has a second time undone the work 
of the Legislature, and refused to remove Judge Loring. 



28 

As far as the man Burns himself was concerned, 
it mattered little, for he had become too dangerous, 
by means of his extraordinary experience. He 
could not be allowed to converse with slaves, or 
even with their owners, in the South : he was pres- 
ently released, for a small sum, and he is now happi- 
ly employed in selling books in the lobbies of the 
Senate House in Ohio. As for the State in which 
Buch things were done, no rational observer would 
suppose that any community could settle down into 
acquiescence after such a demonstration, without a 
removal of grievances ; and Massachusetts is, in fact, 
outside the pale of the Union at this moment, in 
company with several other States, as we shall pres- 
ently see. 

It is not possible for us to give a continuous nar- 
rative of the events, the successive steps, by w^hich 
the results of the acts of 1850 have deepened into 
the present revolutionary crisis. We have exhibited 
one instance of the working of the laws which re- 
pealed the Missouri Compromise ; repealed it, not 
for the sake of restoring the old faith in the powers 
of Congress, and the old restrictions on slavery, but 
in order to subject the whole Union to the control 
of the Southern section, and to throw down the re- 
maining barriers by Avhich free labor was protected. 
The picture of Boston, in wrath and mourning, on 
the day of the rendition of Burns, is a fitting fron- 
tispiece for the disclosure of the actual condition of 
all the States. 

President Buchanan said, in his Inaugural Ad- 
dress on the 4th of last ^larch, that the question of 
the power of Congress to fix tlie conditions of ad- 
mission to the Union was before the Supreme Court, 
and would presently be decided there. Meantime, 
the President plainly intimated his own opinion, 



29 

that Congress liad no such power. "NVitliin forty- 
eight hours, the (IceisiiMi w:ih given, — five judges of 
the ^supreme Court delivering the eunclusion imtiei- 
pated by the President, and two dissenting from it. 
Chief Justiee Taney was a Maryhmd hvwyer, onco 
ehiquent at tlic bar on the guilt and misery of slavo 
institutions, and on the indignation due to Great 
Britain for subjecting his country to the ciirac. Ho 
obtained his great rise in life by services rendered to 
Presiil.'nt Jackson in the bank crisis. He was ap- 
pointed Secretary of the Treasury, and then intro- 
duced into the Supreme Court as Associate Judge. 
On the death of Chief-Justice Marshall, all tho 
world looked for the succession of Judge Story to 
the office, entitled, as he was, to it, on every possi- 
ble ground. The Catholic slaveholder, Taney, was, 
however, appointed ; and from that time, (nearly a 
quarter of a century since,) the Southern politicians 
have used their opportunities well in obtaining a 
hold over the great instrument of the federal judici- 
ary. The founders of the Republic stretched a point, 
for the sake of steiidiness and security, in the case of 
the Judiciary as well as of the Senate. They de- 
creed that the judge?; should not be elected, but ap- 
pointed for life, under the safeguard of impeach- 
ment. But perseverance in improving vacancies 
may serve almost as well as the elective method 
when party purposes are to be served ; and the 
South now holds as secure a majority in the Su- 
preme Court, as if it had beaten the North in tho 
clecti(m of judges. Its pet judge, Taney, has now 
precipitated the conflict which the new President 
hoped to defer for four years. No one will under- 
take to say that the appointment of Judge Story 
would have saved the State from collisions, or ma- 
terially altered the case. It is not every man who 



30 

is born a hero, and Joseph Story never advanced 
pretensions to a valor which he did not feel. On 
the contrary, he eased his mind by avowing, in pri- 
vate intercourse, that his apprehensions of the con- 
sequences of any action on any side in the sectional 
question sealed his mouth, and paralyzed his hands. 
After the crisis of the Missouri Compromise, he 
never (as his son informs us in vol. i. p. 360 of his 
' Life and Letters,'.) came forward in public on po- 
litical matters ; and if such was his course of si- 
lence and non-committal in his own State, it is not 
likely that he would have stemmed a stronger cur- 
rent of opinion at Washington. He never did as 
Associate Judge, and we have no reason to suppose 
that he would in the more conspicuous seat from 
which he was injuriously thrust aside. After this 
long term of office, Chief-Justice Taney has immor- 
talized his old age by the judgment in the case of 
Dred Scott, which, whether recalled or allowed to 
stand, will, in all probability, be renowned hereaf- 
ter as the occasion, though not specifically the cause, 
of the outbreak of the second great American Rev- 
olution. 

Dred Scott is a negro, who supposes himself to 
be about fifty-five years of age. He was born in 
Virginia, and was taken by his master to St. Louis 
when he was a young man. Being purchased by 
an army surgeon, named Emerson, he accompanied 
this new master in his professional removals ; and 
in one instance, lived for two years in that North- 
western territory which was made exempt from sla- 
very for ever by the Act of 1787. Unaware of hav- 
ing thus acquired his liberty, he offered to buy him- 
self and his family of tlie widow of Dr. Emerson. 
The lady refused ; he was advised to claim his liber- 
ty ; and tlie proceedings have dragged on for ten 



31 

years, during which interval, Mrs. Emerson has 
married again, her present husband Ixinn; a citizen 
of Massacluisetts, and heartily disposed to estahlish 
the liberty of Dred Scott, for which he has spared 
no effort and no cost. The trustee of his wife has, 
however, had complete control of the suit. Durinj; 
the uncertainty of the case, and while he waH left 
to do pretty mueh as he pleased, Dred Scott's two 
daughters esea})ed — probably into Canada. There 
can be little doubt that he will be released, as Burns 
was, on account of his dangerous antecedents; and 
he is, at all events, sure of good usage, from the 
eyes of the world being fixed on his case.* lie him- 
self says, with the complacency belonging to slave- 
ry, that he could make thousands of dollars by trav- 
elling through the country, and merely saying who 
he is. The judges (five out of seven present) went 
so much further than was necessary in the judgment 
they pronounced, that it is evident that they seized 
the occasion for establishing the supremacy of the 
Southern policy, at the outset of a new presidential 
term. The decision embraced five points; whereas 
the first was enough for the case before them. The 
points are these : — 

1st. That negroes and people of color are not cit- 
izens ; and that, as a consequence, Dred Scott could 
not come into court. This, if true, settled Dred 
Scott's business, and that of four millions of his 
race, natives of the United States. 

2d. That slaves are property, in the same sense as 

* Since the above was written, intGlH<jence has 
reached Vn2;land that Dred Scott and hi.s wiie and 
two daupjhters were eniancijtnted at St. IjOuis on the 
2r)th of May. The husband of his owner effected liis 
release by making him over to a slaveholder of St. 
Louis who had power to emancipate him, and lost no 
time in doing so. 



32 

any kind of chattel : bo that a slave-owner may 
carry his negroes into any State of the Union, and 
settle them there, as sluves, notwithstanding any 
State laws to the contrary. If this is true, the 
whole Union is slave territory, and the sovereign 
States have no power to deliver themselves from it. 
It needs no showing that this cuts up by the roots 
the fundamental liberties of every Republic in the 
Union, and enslaves the Federal Union itself under 
an assumed ordinance of a long-dead generation. 

3d. That Congress has no power over the institu- 
tions of the Territories : in other words, that all the 
provisions of the settlement of 1787, all the enact- 
ments at the time of the Missouri Compromise, all 
the reversals of those enactments in 1854, all the 
proceedings of seventy years which suppose the ciU 
izenship of the colored people, the limitations of 
slavery, and an antagonistic policy between North 
and South , are mere M'aste paper. 

4th. That Congress cannot delegate a power which 
it does not possess ; and that, therefore, the Terri- 
tories themselves have no power to exclude slavery 
from their own borders. 

5th (included in the second). That the slavehold- 
er has a right to settle his slaves on any soil within 
the Union, as a Northern man may establish his 
cattle and horses wherever he pleases to live. 

We need not waste our space in any discussion of 
this judgment. On the face of it, it makes slavery 
as perpetually and every where present as the at- 
mosphere, over the whole area of the United States ; 
and it overthrows the entire legislation of the Fed- 
eral Union and of most of the States, for above sev- 
enty years, in all that concerns inter-state relations, 
and the rights of the sovereign States. Thus the 
rights of the negroes are only one portion, and not 



33 

the chief portion, of the interests involved. The 
judgment is of the strongest revohitionary chsinic- 
ter, — subversive as it is of the whole mass of h^gisla- 
tion, and the whole poliey of the founders of the 
Republic and their successors to this day. If it 
could be acted out, that would be revolution. If it 
is resisted, that is also revolution, because the entire 
organization of the Federal Government stands or 
falls with the Supreme Court. Some people talk of 
the judges being compelled to reverse their own 
judgment. If that were possible, the authority of 
the judiciary is virtually destroyed ; and the ques- 
tion which caused its destruction remains, pressing 
for settlement, while more than ever incumbered 
with hopeless embarrassment. 

The immediate effects of the decision are very 
striking. As for as we have been able to discover, 
no one has publicly avowed approbation of the 
judgment. The most that we see attempted on be- 
half of the South is the assumption that, the judg- 
ment having been passed, it must be made the best 
of. The newspapers in the interest of the South 
and its cabinet at Washington, take for granted 
that the only remedy is a majority the other way 
in the Supreme Court. In illustration of this, 
those journals point out the habit of the judges to 
live to a good old age ; so that it is likely to be 
fifteen years before the scale can be turned. This is 
a cool way of degrading the judiciary into an object 
of party contest ; but then, persons who talk of this 
judgment being the law of the land, must l)e well 
aware that long ])efore that term has expired, the 
Union may be under a military despotism, or have 
fallen to pieces. 

The President, in the first place, assumes that the 
matter is settled, and all right ; though his Sjcreta- 



34 

ry of State, Mr. Cass, Tvith all his Southern lean- 
ings, could not sit through the delivery of the judg- 
ment. After manifesting many signs of agitation, 
he snatched his hat, and left the court "while the 
Chief-Justice was still speaking. As soon as it 
was possible for reports to arrive from various parts 
of the country, the central newspapers began to 
teem with rebukes of the disorderly spirit of com- 
munities and their leaders, which would not sit 
down quietly under the doom of their constitutional 
liberties. The Republican party, which so nearly 
brought in Fremont, and which expects to bring 
him in next time, was informed that its ' platform ' 
was ' shivered to atoms.' ' That is settled. What 
was in doubt (the power of Congress in the Terri- 
tories) is in doubt no longer. The supreme law is 
expounded by the supreme authority ; and disobe- 
dience is rebellion, treason, and revolution.' Such 
was the language of government organs. But so 
loud was the outcry, of not only the Republican 
party, but a good many more of the citizens, that 
feelers were put out to try whether the judgment 
could not be got rid of. The political talkers aflPect- 
ed to consider the decision an opinion which left the 
case unsettled ; and we have seen some newspapers, 
in which tentative paragraphs to that eficct were 
put forth. But it appears to have been too late for 
tbat mode of escape, wlien the two dissentient judges, 
Curtis and McLean, had published their protest 
against the judgment, and the grounds of it. When 
the minority of the Court treated it as a decision, 
nobody out of the Court could declare it to be only 
an opinion. 

While this was going forward, what was the gen- 
eral aspect of society at AYashington ? For many 
years past, the imperious temper and bullying man- 



35 

nors of the untravollcl SoutluTn mcmbors of Con- 
gress had so oiKToarlioil on conventional usa<:;<'S, in 
rc'i-anl to tlio Northern nii'inlK'rs. that it waH c-loar 
that souje ox|th>sion niw^t take; phicc, sliowing 
whether or not the two kinds and degrees of eivili- 
zation could combine for political action. The out- 
rage on Mr. Sumner was the explosion wliich no 
many were looking for ; and the world in general 
seems to think that the question is pretty nearly 
settled. The South at large sui)porte<l and rewarded 
the ruffian who assailed an unarmed man at a de- 
fenceless moment ; and it is not easy to see h(jw two 
sets of legislators, who are of directly opposite opin- 
ions as to which was the hero and which the coward 
of the occasion, can legislate together on matters 
which involve the very principles of liberty, and 
the civilization which belongs to it. The one set of 
members ar.e living under a retrograde military re- 
gime, in a period of despotism and physical force : 
and the other is living under the advanced period of 
the commercial regime, which supposes and guar- 
antees personal liberty, and sanctions intelligence 
and self-interest, superseding physical force. Em- 
erson was roused by the occasion of the assault on 
Mr. Sumner to utter words which were caught up 
throughout the free States : and public opinion in 
the Wijrld generally seems to corroborate his conclu- 
sion. ' I do not see,' said Emerson, in his address 
to the citizens of Concord, ' how a- barbarous com- 
munity and a civilized community can constitute 
one State.' This is the question in which the con- 
tinuance of the Uniim is involved ; and it was pro- 
posed in its most critical form by Preston Brooks 
when he half murdered the Massachusetts Senator on 
the floor (jf Congress. The South, by reeognising 
the deed as an act of patriotism, has sealed the doom 



36 

of tlie Union, if the more civilized portion of the 
States choose to exact the legitimate consequences. 
About the same time, another member of Congress 
took occasion to exemplify the Southern view of in- 
dustrial relations, lie shot through the heart an 
Irish waiter at a hotel, and escaped all punishment 
but a small fine, imposed by the District Court, as 
if for the purpose of endorsing the murderer's opin- 
ion that ' a menial ' is not a man, — white laborers 
reducing tlicmselves, by the very act of labor, to the 
social position of slaves. The Charleston Standard 
observed on the occasion — ' If white men accept the 
office of menials, it should be expected that they will 
do so with an apprehension of their relation to soci- 
ety, and the disposition quietly to encounter both 
the responsii)ilities and tlie lialiilities which the re- 
lati(m implies.' An Alabama paper hoped tluit 
' waiters at the North ' would take a lesson in pru- 
dence, and not expect the security of gentlemen 
while they did the work of gentlemen's live chat- 
tels. Can those who work, and those who thus re- 
gard work, ' constitute one State ' ? Meantime, a 
clergyman, the Rev. Moncure Conway, much fol- 
lowed and respected, preached some of the common- 
est doctrines of Christian liljert^^ and love, and was 
advised to resign his pulpit at AVashington. lie 
did so ; and there was an intention of building a 
church for him where he might preach the whole 
Gospel, but he seems to be now permanently settled 
at Cincinnati ; and one of the recent tokens of rev- 
olutionary tendencies in Ohio, is an invitation from 
a body of Senators and Eepresentatives to jNIr. Con- 
way to come and lecture to them. AcC()rding to 
Mr. Olmsted's statements, slavery must be rapidly 
melting away in the District of Columbia ; and ac- 
counts from Virginia, of a yet more recent date, 



37 

plainly fix the tiino, uitliin a ft^v years, wlirn 
scarcely a slave will be hit in Wasliinj^ton. The 
number of European and free negro laborers and ser- 
vants is perpetually on tlie increase ; the facilities 
for escjipe are very great ; and the owners of slaves 
prefer letting them out to iiirers beyond the limits 
of the District. Yet there are frecpient evidences of 
the slaves being, even now, too many for their mas- 
ters. The accident, whatever it was, which killed 
so many of the boarders at the National Hotel, last 
winter, and wliich has prostrated the health and 
strength of so many more, (including the President,) 
was at first hushed up as much as possilde ; but 
whatever the truth may be, the fiitality at the Na- 
tional Hotel has led to the disclosure of a good many 
elsewhere.* First, there was talk of arsenic ; and 
this occasioned the temporary ' solution,' as it was 
called, of the rat story. It was said tliat a multi- 
tude of rats, suffering under the pains of poison, 

* At the end of A])ril, the number of ascertained 
deaths from the fatality at the National Hotel was be- 
tween twenty and thirty ; and there were still many 
ca^es lin<Tering between death or recovei-y. The num- 
ber of persons taken ill was seven hundred ; and 
there is probably no other country in the civilized 
world where such an incident could have made so 
little noise. When deaths were still occurring;, after 
an interval of many weeks, the merchants of Wash- 
ington subscribed ten thousand dollars for a reward, 
on information beinj; given which shoxild afford a so- 
lution of the mystery. At a still later date, two 
physicians of the hisjhest reputation were commis- 
sioned to examine and report on the character of the 
disease ; and a set of questions were sent by them to 
every invalid about the symptoms and course of the 
illness. As the seven hundred victin\s are dispersed 
over the whole country, the medical world has every 
where become interested in the iiuiuiry ; and by the 
latent accounts, the conviction that arsenic was the 
agent is becoming universal. 



38 

had rushed into the cistern, and were found close 
packed in hiyers in the water drunk in the house. 
This story being anxiously disproved by the proprie- 
tors, and hushing-up being impossible, an ostenta- 
tious examination and superficial report on the 
drains and cesspools was sent forth, some essential 
facts of which .are denied by competent persons, 
while subsequent deaths are believed to point un- 
mistakably to arsenic as their cause. There is a 
tacit understanding among many, — probably among 
most of the observers of the circumstances, — that the 
catastrophe is doubtless the work of slaves ; and no 
one who has so visited the slave States as to be in 
the confidence of the planters, could be much sur- 
prised at such an incident. There is scarcely a 
long-settled neighborhood in the Southern States 
where there are not bereaved parents, widows, and 
widowers, whose homes have been rendered desolate 
by ' the propensity ' of slaves to poison whites. 

At Washington, we thus see one half of the Sen- 
ate is in direct hostility with the other ; while the 
leading men of the great Northern majority, in both 
Houses, live under threats of assault, and carry 
arms in fear of murder by ' Southern chivalry,' if 
caught defenceless. The Supreme Court has de- 
scended into the dirt of political partisanship, and 
adventured the overthrow of the principles and pol- 
icy of the Republic, directly provoking a revolution. 
No man in the capital of this Democratic Republic 
can safely speak his mind ; and even the clergy can- 
not freely preach the gospel from their own pulpits. 
As murder skulks in the streets, so poison is hidden 
at the Board. The President tells the world in his 
public addresses, that nothing can be better than 
the state of the country ; and that, in regard to po- 
litical agitation, in particuhir, ' all is calm : ' while 



39 

aware that treason reigns in the courts, violence in 
the k'gishvtive chambers, assjiasination in the streets 
and pul>lic veliiclcp, and a most potent spirit (jf ven- 
geance in tlio kitchen ; -yrhile he is hiniwH" feeble 
and suffering from 'an accident,' •which he can 
perhaps account for better than we can. He is 
understood to promise • a totally new policy, do- 
mestic and foreign,' about which he is to explain 
himself in tlie summer. Meanwhile, it is for our 
readers to judge whether Washington is prepared, 
by a spirit of union, loyalty, and mutual confidence 
among its residents, to be the citadel of the Federal 
Government, in case of revolutionary action among 
the States. 

VYhat is the aspect of the respective States? The 
two leading sovereignties, according to tradition and 
fTcstige, are Virginia and Massachusetts ; the first 
leading the ' gallant South ' and its ' peculiar insti- 
tution,' and the other heading the Puritan-descend- 
ed populations and governments of New England. 
According to the statements of the leading journal 
of its capital city, Richmond, less than five years 
ago, Viro-inia once contained more wealth and a 
larger population than any other State of the Union ; 
whereas it was, in 1852, the fifth in point of wealth, 
and the fourth in population. The city of New 
York then contained more free persons than the 
whole of Virginia east of the Alleghanies ; and of 
this population, it was computed, that no less than 
1GG,000 young persons, between seven and sixteen 
years of age, were brought up in total ignorance. 
These were • mean whites' — an element which we 
have shown to be all-important in considering the 
political prospects of any State where they exist. 
Tliere is a better chance for them in Virginia than 
in any other Southern State, because there is less 



40 

slave labor. The land has lapsed into barrenness, 
through the failure of capital and the high cost of 
labor ; and the revenue of the slaveholders is main- 
ly derived from the slave-breeding. Not one-fourth 
of the cultivable area is under tillage ; and two- 
thirds of what was once highly productive is now 
mere waste. Farms are offered for sale ' by thou- 
sands,' the journals say ; but nobody will buy. 
Even the wolves have re-appeared in Eastern Vir- 
ginia, and the newspapers dechire that they are as 
numerous, and inhabit lands as wild, as in the days 
of Captain Smith and Pocahontas. The soil lies 
open for tillage ; yet the poor whites are so desti- 
tute and discontented, that there is a growing dread 
of ' rebellion ' on their part, by means of a vigo- 
rous use of the suffrage, which would presently place 
the legislation of the State in their hands. In the 
midst of the vigilance caused by tliis apprehension, 
Governor Wise ventured upon tlie most extraordina- 
ry incitements to revolution, in case of the election 
of any President acceptable to the Northern States, 
which he describes as peopled by ' greasy mechan- 
ics,' who live among foul circumstances and foul 
thoughts, and bring down all the gentry to their own 
level. lie was prepared for a dissolution of the 
Union, and declared the State to be so, too, in pre- 
ference to living under the rule of Fremont. A 
greater revolution than he proposed is going forward 
under Buchanan. So many slaves have escaped, 
and the abasement of agriculture is so complete, that 
the party of west-country farmers, long desirous to 
abolish slavery, is receiving accessions of force which 
seem likely to render it dominant. For some time 
past, land has been offered to settlers from the North 
and from Europe so cheap as to intercept some of 
the mill-ration to the West. The land so offered is 



41 

chiefly lapsed estates, •which, once exhausted and 
left wild, have returned to their original condition, 
and await the process of clearin;};, as thoy did two 
or three centuries ago. So good is the prospect, 
that the lion. Eli Thayer, of Massachusetts, has set 
on foot a project for settling Virginia lands from 
New York hj means of a company, just as Kansas 
is dealt with hy the Emigrant Aid Societies. The 
proposal has been like a bomb-shell cast into the 
midst of the State of Virginia. Some leading news- 
papers go all lengths in denouncing such interfer- 
ence with the staple business of slave-breeding ; 
while other journals hope that it may regenerate 
the State by introducing a good quality of labor, 
■which must bring after it the capital which is so 
much needed. The scheme is not a sound one ; for 
no citizens of any free country, American or Euro- 
pean, could endure to live under the laws of Virgin- 
ia, as they now are ; and there can be no reason why 
emigrants should sit down in a region where indus- 
try is a disgrace. But there is no doubt of a radi- 
cal change being in progress, which cannot go on 
long without bringing Virginia over to the North- 
ern section, in virtue of its free labor. The black 
population is carried out of the State in such num- 
bers, that the new.^papers propose a term of ' ten or 
twenty years ' for ' clearing Virginia completely of 
that part of her population.' Any considerable 
immigration from the free States, and the creation of 
a new landed and free-labor interest, would bring 
after it a speedy change in the laws, and complete 
conversion in politics. But the decision in Dred 
Scott's ease Icavi'S no time for a peaceable conver- 
sion ; and there is no doubt whatever that Virginia 
is at present divided against itself, and ready to 
come to blows on the first incitement. The new 



42 

search-law of jNIarch, 185G, by which all vessels not 
wholly Virginian are made subject to search, if 
bound to any place Xorth of the ports of the State, 
and nc^fe allowed to sail without a certificate, which 
has to be paid for, is declared unconstitutional by 
several of the States ; and Massachusetts has, by 
its Senate, resolved to contest the point. It has ap- 
propriated a sufficient amount of money to enable a 
sea-captain of their State to abide the penalties of re- 
fusal : and this collision, involving all the feelings 
connected with the subject of fugitive slaves, may 
very possibly have grave consequences. Meanwhile, 
the ruling and talking party of Virginia are pledg- 
ed to slavery, and to sustain the Supreme Court, 
and brave a dissolution of the Union, rather than 
admit a President of the Republican party ; while 
an immense majority of the citizens are bent on a 
policy which requires the whole area of the State for 
its action. What the hatred is like which the Virgin- 
al slave-breeder entertains towards his fellow-republi- 
cans of the free States is shown, in some degree, by 
a very recent fact. When the capital of the State was 
ravaged by pestilence in 1855, physicians and sur- 
geons were summoned from a distance, or went 
voluntarily to Norfolk, to render aid. Of these de- 
voted men, fourteen died, and were buried on the 
spot. Newspapers of a late date, and the Norfolk 
Argus for one, inform us that the state of Southern 
feeling towards the free North ' requires the remo- 
val' of the bodies of these benefactors of the city. 
Such a thing seems incredible ; but the disinterment 
of the bodies, for removal to Pliihulolphia, is an- 
nounced as actually decreed. If this degree of sec- 
tional hatred is insanity, it is also revolution. 

Massachusetts, the intellectual and moral leader 
of the States of the federation, is at this moment 



43 

actually not in tlie Union. Its Personal Liberty 
law is in direct contradiction to the federal law re- 
garding fugitive slaves ; and the position of antago- 
nism sconis likely to be maintained by the spirit of 
the people. A fugitive family now in Bi)ston af- 
fords an occasion for bringing the discrepancy to a 
decision ; but the Slave Power does not seem dispos- 
ed to try. Tlie slave-mother in this case is as white 
as any lady in Boston ; and this practical testimony 
to the ' amalgamation ' prevalent in tlio South gives 
force to the case, and makes it a good one for a test. 
The alternative was fairly placed before the fugi- 
tive — whether she would proceed to Canada with 
her children, or remain under the guardianship of 
the laws of Massachusetts, and of its vigilant citi- 
zens. She decided to remain ; and visitors have gone 
from house to house to engage the citizens in a pledge 
to defend their guests against all hostile comers, at 
all risks. 

The pledge is as solemn as that of ' lives, fortunes, 
and sacred honor ' on the former great occasion . 
The rendition of Sims first, and then of Barns, was 
a mournful piece of training for Massachusetts, 
which has evidently ' bettered the instruction,' and 
she is duly prepared for the consequences of refusing 
any further rendition of fugitives. The Governor of 
the State, Gardner, in his proclamation of a general 
fast in April, went out of his way to recommend 
the clergy and citizens to avoid mixing up political 
subjects with the devotions of the day. The response 
is very striking. The citizens have spoken out in 
their various ways to the effect that to omit political 
sin, sorrow, peril, and fear from their prayers, would 
be to mock Heaven with hypocrisy ; and even the clergy 
for the most part so backward in recognizing the worst 
sins and troubles of their day, made the churches 



44 

ring with their denunciations of the Government's 
interference, and with their reprobation of the de- 
cision of the Supreme Court, The old spirit is fair- 
ly up, as it was on the first reception of the news of 
the treatment inflicted on their senator, last year. 
No doubt, it takes some time, and requires a few 
failures, to bring the community into the true 
plight for a revolutionary struggle ; and there is 
much truth in the allegations we hear of the mer- 
cenary character of much of the support given to 
the Kansas Emigrant Aid Society, and of the reluc- 
tance of the wealthy, the indolent, and the timid to 
affront the South, and the great men at Washington. 
Still, there have now been so many overt acts of 
committal and reform, and the great body of citizens 
who are not involved with the South, commercially 
or otherwise, have always shown themselves so 
sound when fairly tested, that there can be no rea- 
sonable doubt of Massachusetts leading the North in 
any resistance to unconstitutional claims from the 
South. The common schools in Boston have recent- 
ly been thrown open to the children of the people of 
color, who were formerly educated in separate 
schools. None but the best results have ensued ; 
and this step is to be sustained, in defiance of all le- 
gal decisions that negroes are not citizens, and can 
have no rights or claims.* Again, Massachusetts 
was, we believe, the first State which organized 
Disunion Associations, — societies formed to spread 
such information, and afibrdsuch centres of opinion 
and action, as would prepare and bring about a 
dissolution of the Union ; and the recent action of 

* A more recent act of great courage is announc- 
ed. The Senate has decreed that tlie Secretary of 
the State of Massachusetts shall supply passports to 
citizens of color disirous of travelling abroad. 



45 

the Supreme Court has remarkably increased the 
number of these societies in the North. The Free- 
soil party is, of course, demolishod })y the judgment 
in Drcd Scott case ; and it vvoiiM have poriished 
nearly as soon without such a blow. Its aim was 
' to render freedom national, and slavery sectional,' 
instead of the existing converse. It needs no show- 
ing how that aim was impracticable, and how great 
a mistake it has been to call the free-soil leaders Ab- 
olitionists ; and the present fortunes of the Free- 
Soilers have brought over multitudes to the convic- 
tion, that no aim short of tlie abolition of slavery 
can succeed, politically or otherwise. Thus, while 
the Abolitionists are duly grateful to Mr. Sumner 
and other free-soil leaders, they do not endorse their 
doctrine, nor approve of going into Congress by 
swearing to support the Constitution which it is 
their very object to subvert in some of its essential 
provisions. The method is certainly more direct 
and honest ; and every turn of events seems to prove 
it more rational and hopeful. They have long open- 
ly declared, that nothing could be done for the liber- 
ties of the Republic while it had a pro-slavery Con- 
stitution ; and that the only practicable remedy was 
an amendment of the Constitution. As the slave- 
holding interest have chosen to bind up the Union 
with the Constitution and their own additions to it, 
they have shaped the aim of the Abolitionists into 
the form of Disunion. Citizens of the highest 
character, ability, zeal, and disinterestedness have 
devoted themselves to the work of preaching the 
disunion doctrine ; and they certainly seem to be 
leading public conviction more effectually in that 
direction. An incident whicli occurred a few 
months ago reveals a prodigious change in the senti- 



46 

ment of Boston itself, which is about as timid, and 
aristocratic, and dull-hearted a city, in regard to 
matters of reality, as any in the Union. Twenty- 
one years before the date of Mr. Sumner's reception 
in Boston on his partial recovery, Mr. Garrison had 
been mobbed in the streets, and in imminent danger 
of being destroyed as an incendiary ; and for many 
long years he endured ill-usage from almost every 
class of his neighbors. He was considered a revolu- 
tionary agitator of the most dangerous character. 
When Mr. Sumner returned to his constituents, 
half-murdered, he was received with the highest 
honors by as vast a multitude as could find stand- 
ing room along the route. He was enjoined by his 
physicians to make no exertion whatever, and above 
all things, to keep his head covered. He must not 
remove his hat on any consideration. In the door- 
way of a corner house (a well-known Abolitionist 
house) stood Garrison, on the top step, as it happen- 
ed. Mr Sumner saw him, and for the only time 
that day, removed his hat. The crowd cheered the 
act, and, turning to Garrison, cheered him long and 
loudly. The incident disclosed what seems the mind 
of Massachusetts in the present crisis. Mr. Sum- 
ner is re-elected, as the nearest to an Abolitionist 
who will o;o to Congress. 

Several other States have assumed the same atti- 
tude towards the decision of the Supreme Court that 
Massachusetts did before in regard to the Fugitive 
Slave Act by her Personal Liberty Law. The ac 
tion of the Legislatures of New York and Penn- 
sylvania has been open and decided. That of New 
York, reported as early as tlie 9th of April, denoun- 
cing the Washington judgment as unconstitutional 
and altogether intolerable, and recommending cer 



47 

tain resolutions, wliich were pafificd hy large majori- 
ties. It will 1x3 enough to cite the iht>t : 

• Ilesolv».d, That this State will not allow Bhivery 
witliin ity borders, in any form, or under any pre- 
tence, lor any time, however ahort, llt the co-nse- 

ULENCES ME WHAT TJIEY MAY.' 

Ou the 1st of May, the Pennsylvania Legislature 
pronounced on the decision of the Supreme Court, 
that it was null in law because it was gratuitously 
offered, wholly uncalled for, and to no purpose, if 
the judges themselves were right in declaring that 
Dred Scott was not, because he could not be, before 
the Court. The judgment was further declared to 
be ' a wanton attack on the sovereignty of the free 
States, and an impotent attempt to nullify the cstab- 
t.ihlishedlawsof the country.' The Maine Legislature 
passed two Acts, which received the Governor's ap- 
proval in April, protecting the liberty of all colored 
persons touching the soil of the State, and providing 
them with all possible aid, legal and executive, in 
case of their being arrested as slaves ; and the New 
England States have all, we believe, declared in one 
form or another, that they do not intend to yield up 
their laws and liberties ; and there seems to be no 
doubt of their following the lead of Massachusetts 
in regard to sound Personal Liberty laws, as in oth- 
er matters. In Connecticut, twenty years ago, 
there was no justice to be had on behalf of the 
teachers of children of color, or of the pupils ; as 
was shown in the case of Miss Crandall, who could 
obtain no protection from the mob. On that occa- 
sion, the courts declined to decide the question 
whetlier negroes were citizens ; but now there is no 
document to which the present crisis has given rise, 
that exceeds in condemnation the Report of the 



48 

Connecticut Union State Committee on tlie Dred 
Scott decision, In pious old Rhode Island, the cler- 
gy have constantly endeavored to exclude social sub- 
jects, under the name of political, from the discus- 
sions of the ' Young Men's Christian Associations ;' 
and all mention of the colored race was therefore 
tabooed. But the ' young men ' have no mind to 
be tongue-tied at such a time ; and they have con- 
sulted President Wayland, the model moral philos- 
opher (in their opinion) of their country, and he 
has replied that no topics seem to him more fit for 
Christian discussion than the duties of different 
races of men to each other, the obligations of social 
and domestic relations, and the individual trust of 
personal freedom, and the duties which belong to it. 
Such a piece of counsel will be like the sound of a 
trumpet throughout the old Puritan group of States. 
While we write, we learn that the fervor has spread 
beyond the Puritan States. The ' Christian Young 
Men's Association ' of New York has sustained the 
loss of a dozen ' evangelical clergymen ' in one eve- 
ning, in consequence of the declaration that the du- 
ties of justice, peace, and good will, which they as- 
semble to discuss and promote, must be considered 
as owing to persons of all complexions. The clergy 
cannot stand this doctrine ; and they accordingly 
withdraw, leaving the ' Christian Y'^oung Men ' to 
get on in their studies under the light of the spirit 
of the time, as that of the Church is withdrawn. 

Ohio takes the lead of the Western States ; and, 
as a part of the territory dedicated to perpetual 
freedom by the Ordinance of 1787, she has the 
stronscst interest in the decision of 1857. No time 
was lost by the Legislature in enacting ' that it 
shall be unlawful to confine in the Penitentiary of 
this State, or in the jails of any county of this 



49 

State, any person or persons charged with simply 
being a fugitive from slavery.' Our readers need 
not ho infuruied that Ohio knows uiure abuiit tiigi- 
tive slaves than perhaps any other equal area of civ- 
il ization. Kidnappers are the local horror there, as 
Inillans are in Oregon, and discontented slaves in 
Louisiana. It is in Cincinnati that negro mothers 
slay their own infants with virtuous intentions, to 
save them from the hell of female slavery. It is 
there that, on the river frontier, fugitives cross hy 
scores and by hundreds, wlien the ice affords a pas- 
sage ever so perilous ; while on the opposite lake- 
frontier on the north, the bright side of the pic- 
ture is seen — that of the sailing away of the wan- 
derers for tlie free soil of Canada. In Ohio, the 
' Underground Raihvay ' is busiest ; unless, indeed, 
the activity of the other great branch, through 
Pennsylvania, New York and New England now 
rivals the western one. AVe observe, also, that ^la- 
ryland is fiercely denounced bjfc Southern newspapers 
as rapidly going over to the free States, and especial- 
ly as affording the safest path for fugitives to the 
North. It is through Ohio, however, that the 
greatest number of successful escapes is supposed to 
be made : and the noble list of ruined hosts is re- 
markably long in that State — the list of good men 
and women who have suffered loss for the sake of 
speeding the fugitives on their way. It was in Ohio 
that a constant influx of facts, visible incidents, and 
stronj!; emotions filled the laroje heart of Harriet 
Beecher Stowe, and made it overflow into the gener- 
al heart of the world. Year by year, petitions are 
sent up to the Legislature of Ohio, demanding the 
dissolution of its union with tlie slave States ; and 
at length some notice is granted to these petitions, — 
enough to proceed upon, if the demand become pre- 
3 



50 . 

valent. Meanwhile, the State is in fact outside the 
pale of the Union, like Massachusetts, from the in- 
compatibility of its laws relating to personal liberty 
with those recently enacted at Washington. The 
only recognition of the new Supreme Court law in 
any of that group of States seems to be in the way 
of joke. Some fugitive slaves being brought to the 
bar at Chicago for stealing fowls, their counsel 
pleaded that they were not amenable to law, a re- 
cent judgment of the Supreme Court having decided 
that negroes were not citizens, and had no business 
before the tribunals, on any pretence whatever. He 
carried the court with him. Some jocose railway 
travellers of dark complexion have refused, on the 
authority of the Supreme Court, to pay more than 
freight for their journey. Being simply things, 
they contend, they should be charged cents by the 
foot, and not dollars by the head. Ohio has much 
discredit to overcome from her former hardness to 
the colored race ; and a pro-slavery clergy seems to 
exercise a most unwarrantable influence throughout 
the western region : but it is not to be imagined 
that, in such a crisis as the present, the lovers of 
freedom, and citizens })ledgcel to republican self-gov- 
ernment, should not be strong and determined 
enough to defend their right against encroachments 
which they are especially called on to defy. The 
commerce ' down stream ' is no doubt a powerful 
consideration with the merchant class at Cincinnati: 
but there is a northern shore, with a practicable 
world of traffic beyond the lake ; and there are 
western States whose freedom is of the utmost im- 
portance to Ohio. The establishment of free labor 
in Nebraska and Kansas, and the whole north-west 
territory, would compensate the Cincinnati mer- 
chants ibr any luss of custom from the lower jSiis- 



51 

sissippi : but there is no danger of such loss : for 
Ohio is of more importance to the slave States tiian 
they can ever be of to her. Ohio, being already in 
collision with the federal laws, may be confidently 
reckoned on as one of tlie revolutionary group, if 
the slave power compels such an issue.* As for the 
most westerly States, all nortli of Missouri have act- 
ed decisively in favor of the establishment of free 
labor in Kansas. Iowa is to vote, next August, for 
or against the proposition that people of color are 
to have the suffrage on precisely ecjual terms with 
whites. The mere proposition, whatever may be its 
fate, is a revolutionary act ; and the support it 

* Our anticipations are already confirraed. The 
following is extracted from The 'Tunes of June 12th : 

• A despatch from Cincinnati, of the 29th of May, 
says : — " Deputy United States Marshal Churchill, 
and eleven assistants, left this city last Tuesday to ar- 
rest four persons in Mcchanicsburg, Champagne Coun- 
ty, Ohio, charged with harboring fugitive slaves nine 
months ago. The arrests were made on Wednesday, 
when a writ of Habeas Corpus was taken out ; but 
before it could be served, the United States officers, 
with their prisoners, were beyond the bounds of the 
county. Another writ Avas taken out in Green Coun- 
ty, and served by the Sheriff, assisted by a large crowd 
of citizens. The United States officers resisted, and 
several shots were exchanged ; but finally the United 
States officers Mere overpowered, taken prisoners, 
and brought to Sjn-ingfield for trial for resisting the 
Slieriff in the discharge of his duty. The greatest 
excitement prevailed. The United States 5larshal 
telegraphed the Secretary of the Interior to-day for 
instructions regarding the arrest and imprisonment of 
the United States officers, but the nature of the in- 
structions received in reply has not yet transpired. — 
Judge Leavitt, United States District Judge, is^?ued a 
writ of Habeas Corpus to-day, and the Marshal has 
gone to Springfield to serve it. In case resistance is 
offered, it is reported that the United States troops 
will be called out." ' 



52 

meets with 3hows that a great number of the citizens 
are rendering themselves responsible for such a step 
at such a time. Wisconsin is no less agitated. The 
action there on personal liberty k'gislatiou is too ex- 
tensive and protracted to be fully cited here. The 
whole group of north-western States and Territories 
have opened roads, set up mails, forwarded supplies, 
furnished armed guards, and bodies of militia, — 
done, in short, all they could to compensite for the 
stoppage of the river communication during the 
struggle in Kansas. They have, if not a larger, a 
more exclusive stake in the establishment of free la- 
bor than any other part of the nation ; and they 
will be well able to prevent the extension of slavery, 
if they give a due welcome to the immigrants from 
Europe and the Eastern States, who are always 
pouring in to occupy their fertile plains. 

Does such a survey as this convey any idea that 
the free States will yield obedience to the decision 
of the Supreme Court, and will invite the benumb- 
ing touch of slavery to paralyze their activity — to 
empty their treasuries — to debase their citizens into 
the condition of ' mean whites ' — to banish litera- 
ture, gag the press, pervert or silence the clergy, 
and convert a condition of eminent freedom and 
commercial prosperity like that of London, into a 
state of depression, distrust, and poverty, v.'orse 
than that of Jamaica just before the abolitiim of 
slavery? Who can believe in such a possibility ? 
And yet, the North has much to do to give the world 
assurance that the impending revolution will be 
worthy of a comparison with the former. The free 
States must now either yield or resist. It will not 
suffice for the Supreme Court to rescind its judgment, 
while its present constitution is such, that a repeti- 
tion of outrage may happen any day. An attack 



53 

has been made on the sovereignty of the State, which 
must bo decisively and iinally repelled, or, on tho 
other hand, submitted to ; and either alternative is 
revolution. If even a middle way could be found, 
that would be a revolution too, because it must in- 
clude more or less sanction of Southern encroach- 
ment ; and that is irreconcila])le with the prinei- 
ples of the Republic. Meantime, the free States are 
jicrhaps not more disreputably unready for their 
great duty than in the case of eighty years ago ; 
while their resources of numbers, wealth, sagacity, 
al)ility, and activity, as infinitely transcend those of 
their opponents as those of Great Britain exceeded 
tlie forces of the revolutionists in the former con- 
flict. The Northern States, having all the pow- 
er in their own hands, might have spared their 
country all talk of revolution, by simply main- 
taining their constitutional liberties by constitu- 
tional means. They can never be absolved from the 
crime of having allowed their country to be dragged 
into the abyss of revolution : but it is inconceivable 
that, now that a choice is imperative, they will al- 
low a quarter of a million of citizens, who cannot 
attain prosperity in their private ailliirs, to rule sev- 
enteen millions of active citizens, who, if they have 
no great public virtue to boast of, can at least buy 
up the whole South ton times over. 

AViiile the Southern and federal leaders and news- 
papers declare themselves scandalized at the treason 
and rebellion of the North, what is the condition of 
the slave States ? The North declares it to be one 
of nullification of all the great principles and laws 
of the Union, from end to end of the list of States. 

It is true, the press is nowhere free in the slave 
States. Su vigilant is the censorship, that the read- 
ers of tiie few newspapers which exist, have no more 



54 

knowledge of their real condition than the citizens 
of Paris. The best, as well as the largest part of 
the worM's literature is unknown there, because it 
breathes a freedom unsuited to the climate. There is 
no freedom of trade in the South : not only may a 
bookseller sell none but emasculated and permitted 
books, but a planter or merchant must deal only 
with firms or individuals supposed to be well inclined 
towards slavery. The mail service is violated to such 
an extent, that the contents of the bags are well 
known to be at the mercy of the postmasters, who 
are compelled to detain and destroy all documents 
which seem to them to threaten ' the peculiar insti- 
tution.' The citizens have no security of person, 
property, or residence, being liable to assault on 
any such mob-incitement as happens somewhere or 
other every day : incendiarism is a besetting peril 
wherever slaves are at hand ; and if a man sells an 
obnoxious book, or entertains a mistrusted guest, or 
speaks his mind where walls have ears, he is ordered 
off at a few hours' warning — only too happy to get 
aAvay with his life. These are the ordinary condi- 
tions of existence in the slave States ; and with us 
they would be called revolutionary. There is noth- 
ing of an organic character in such a mode of life. 
But the chronic distrust and instability of ordinary 
times are freedom and security, in comparison Avith 
the present condition of affiirs throughout the slave 
States. 

We have spoken of Virginia. Pursuing the fron- 
tier line," Kentucky comes next. So deep is the dis- 
content with slavery there, that nothing short of 
Henry Clay's great influence could have sustained it 
for many years past : "and now there is a scheme 
afloat for buying out the inveterate slaveholders, in 



55 

order to allow to others a choice between free ami 
slave labor. 

The notion is of opening tlie soil tosettJers, in the 
same way as in Virginia ; and it will be for the 
slave-owners then to decide between emancipating 
their negroes, or selling them to the South, as it is 
well understood that slave and free labor cannot ex- 
ist on the same soil. In either case, Kentucky 
would pass over to the Northern interest, as it should 
naturally have done many years ago. We should 
have rejected as a fable any such scheme as this, 
but for the fact that freedom of the press has been 
achieved by a heroic family, — not without many 
suiferings in person and estate, but still with final 
success. Mr. Bailey has dared all that his neighbors 
could inflict, and after much mobbing, incendiarism, 
opposition of every kind, and repeated ruin, he has 
fairly established a newspaper ( TAe Z)«//y News), 
which tells the truth, and advocates the abolition of 
slavery. That he, and Cassius M, Clay, who eman- 
cipated his negroes years ago, and withstood mob 
dictation, are tolerated in Kentucky, prepares us to 
l)elieve anything within the bounds of reason as to the 
improving prospects of the State. Meantime, her 
posture is revolutionary, whichever way it is looked 
at. The recent slave insurrection is a fearful warn- 
ing. For some weeks the impression in Europe was 
that the insurrection of last winter was, as usual, a 
fancy of the slaveholders, who have been in a panic 
hundreds of times within the quarter of a century 
which has elapsed, without any such outbreak : but 
the evidence is irresistible that there reall}" was some 
tacit understanding among the slaves of a large 
group of States, that they should rise on Christmas 
Day, and achieve the work to bo set them by Colo- 
nel Fremont or his friends. Southern politicians 



56 

had themselves to thank for such a result of their 
stump-oratory. The slaves heard predictions from 
the vrisest men they knew, that the success of Fre- 
mont would occasion the overthrow of slavery ; and 
there were plenty of ' mean-whites ' at hand to es- 
tablish concert among them, and supply them with 
muskets and ammunition. The chaotic state of socie- 
ty which ensued in a dozen States, where the women 
and children were gathered into camps, and their 
husbands and fathers organized into a patrol, while 
negroes were hung in long rows, or burned alive, or 
whipped to death from day to day, was a remarka))le 
preparation for such a revolutionary crisis as the Su- 
preme Court has since brought on. Any abnormal 
condition of the States on the free shore of the great 
rivers must be at least equalled by that of the slave 
States opposite. The Kansas question is too lar^e 
for our bounds at present. We can only observe in 
passing, that nowhere is the conflict of principles 
more remarkable than in Missouri. That State is 
held answerable for the troubles in Kansas ; and 
yet, in the very country of the Border Ruffians, tiie 
desire for the blessings of free labor and free speech 
is so strong, that many people (much better judges 
than we can be) imagine that Missouri will ere long- 
bo purged of the bully element of her population, 
and allowed to live according to her own convictions. 
Others fear that the movement is a mere sham, to be 
carried on only as long as it is the interest of Mis- 
souri to keep terms with both parties. However 
this may be, such a condition of such a territory is 
a fresh revolutionary element thrown in among tlie 
conditions of the time. We observe that the result 
of recent elections in Missouri — in whicii ' the anti- 
slavery ticket ' was carried by a majority supposed 
to Ijc due to the votes (jf white laborers — is regarded 



57 

as intently by the Northern States as hy the ex- 
citable and alarmed South. The New York Tribune 
calls it ' a democratical uprising, such as no South- 
ern State has ever before known.' ' In St. Louis,' 
the writer goes on, * we see the commencement of a 
process l)y wliich t^lavory is speedily to be driven 
from all the most enterprising and vigorous of the 
slaveholding States.' This has a somewhat revolu- 
tionary aspect : and the Southern newspapers take 
the same view. They propose to regard the three 
States of Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri, hence- 
forth as suspected members of the Union, and to 
prohibit all importation of slaves from any of them. 
Such a proposal shows how they are regarded as slave- 
hreeding Stiites ; and surely everybody but the wri- 
ters of such articles must see that such treatment 
must have the immediate effect of joining those three 
great States to the Northern section. By the latest 
accounts, this question of the frontier slave States 
seems to be producing a schism at the South. 

The rest is easily told ; for the slave States are 
much alike in their temper and in their liabilities, 
while they may differ widely, as jNIr. Olmsted has 
shown, in the theory of their governments and the 
welfare of their fortunes. Louisiana admits more 
and more of the proprietorship of land by the mu- 
latto sons of planters, while South Carolina clamors 
for a re-opening of the African slave trade : but both 
are in a condition of discontent and panic. Neigh- 
boring States may show a contrast of oligarchical 
and democratic institutions, but all are alike at 
present under a madness of panic which is equally 
ludicrous and pitiable. For instance, various South- 
ern papers call upon the citizens to keep a vigilant 
eye on all female strangers, who appear as school- 
mistresses, governesses, lecturers, or travellers, as 



58 

* the Southern States are rustling with the petticoats 
of emissaries sent by the Abolitionists.' A certain 
Mrs. Emerson, who lectures on phrenology, has cre- 
ated a whimsical sort of alarm in South Carolina. 
It appears that she is tall and robust ; and her 
hearers, always on the look-out for Abolitionism, 
and being unable to discover any thing of it in her 
lectures, got it into their heads that she was a man 
in disguise. Her chattels were seized and searched : 
among them were letters from persons in half the 
States of the Union, an envelope directed to a person 
in Massachusetts, a lantern, and a side-saddle. It 
does not appear that there was any thing suspicious 
in tlie letters, and the side-saddle was rather a 
damper to the theory ; but the lantern and ]Massa- 
chusetts envelope were made the more of: and the 
lady is packed off witli all speed, being informed 
that if she returns, or goes elsewhere in the slave 
States, she shall be lynched as men are who come 
with lanterns and saddles. Such insane terror is no 
laughing matter, when it leads to tlie cruel assaults 
and murders which are recorded in every newspaper 
which arrives from the South ; and the treatment 
now inflicted on travellers and strangers who ven- 
ture there without a complete set of safeguards, is 
enough of itself to cause a hostile separation of the 
two sections of the Union. One would think that 
gipsies are sufficiently ftimiliar and pretty well un- 
derstood every where ; but a Virginian newspaper 
of repute, which lies before us, assigns a new char- 
acter to the wandering tribe. The gipsies in Vir- 
ginia are ' emissaries of the Abolitionists,' — richly 
p.iid to gather the negroes to their camps to hear 
their fortunes told, and be intoxicated by promises 
of setting their heels on their masters' necks. The 
money of the Abolitionists is spoken of as if tliey 



50 

carri(Ml l)a";s of ^(ild at their sarldlos, like the Freneh 
Emperor ; whereas they, for the most part, trudj^c 
afoot, and have no coin to hivish, having heen im- 
poverished, or prevented from gettinjz; rich, long 
years ago. One of the strongest signs of the times 
is the energy devoted to the spread of Romanism, — 
a zeal by no means confined to Catholics, who yet 
are abundantly ready to improve the occasion. A 
stranger may be excused an incredulous stare when 
told that Protestants of the slave States are eager 
for the propagation of Romanism. The residents 
need no explanation. They understand how pre- 
cious is the safeguard of the Confessional, while 
planters and merchants of all fiiiths are living in the 
same constant dread of incendiarism and insurrec- 
tion. That ' Spiritualism ' should be pressed into 
the service is equally inevitable ; and ' the spirits ' 
make just the responses that might be anticipated. 
There is to be ' blood ' at Washington, and fire on 
plantations, and a triumph of Liberty at last, or a 
reign of negro ferocity, according as the replies are 
made to peacemen or planters, frightened women, or 
haters of the Abolitionists. Virginia newspapers 
record the speeches and receive the letters of leading 
men who, whilst discouraging the South Carolina 
scheme of re-opening the African slave trade, insist 
that the industrial classes ought every where to be 
slaves, and must be so in the United States ; and the 
immediate consequence of grave proposals from high 
quarters to make slaves of the Irish and German im- 
migrants is. that the kidnapping of whites is seri- 
ously on the increase. Seamen, waiters, and other 
servants, travelling merchants, all kinds of itine- 
rants, are liable to capture at some defenceless mo- 
ment ; and unless they can prove their freedom 
within a certain time, are sold lor the payment of 



60 

jail fees. A strolling actor was thus kidnapped 
lately ; and we could fill many pages with narra- 
tives of this kind, authenticated by public proceed- 
ings. It is a common threat, when slaves escape, 
that for every slave who obtains freedom, a free per- 
son shall be caught. Such a threat cannot be lite- 
rally fulfilled ; but it certainly appears that the dis- 
appearance of free persons, of all ages and complex- 
ions, becomes more frequent as ' the Underground 
Railroad ' becomes more frequented. Through all 
times, the owners of slaves have been anxious pa- 
rents ; and the wretchedness of some can be appre- 
ciated only by those who have heard on the spot 
how whole families of young children have died, 
separately or together, by poison or other means of 
murder. Now, the woe spreads on the other side of 
the frontier ; and the disappearance of children (es- 
pecially those of dark complexion) is no uncommon 
incident. TVe are wont to pity the Berber parents 
whose sons are captured to be made eunuchs, and 
whose daugliters are carried oflT for slaves : how can 
we endure our sympathy with Christian parents, of 
the same race and rearing with ourselves, who dare 
not trust their children out of their sight, lest they 
should be sold into the cruellest slavery in the world, 
in their native country ! Mr. Chambers tells us 
what he has heard about this : — 



< The pvacfice of kidnapping white cluldicn in tlie 
Northern States, and transferring them southward, is 
said to be notoriously on the increase. We see it 
mentioned that, in the city of New York alone, as 
many as thirty children, on an average, are stolen 
yearly; it being shrewdly guessed that many of thcni 
arc carried to the markets of the .South, where a good 
price lor them can be readily obtained. If there he 
tlie slightest truth in the supposition that gently- 



61 

niirturod infants arc so abstracted from tho homes of 
tlieir ])arcnts, nothinj; conld ^ivc a more forcible im- 
pression of the horrors entailed on American society 
by the tolerance of slavery in its bosom.' — (p. ;3.) 

Thefe seems to be a sort of general understanding, 
that the turbulence of South Carolina may betaken 
for granted, and need not bo displayed as one of the 
revolutionary elements of the case. ' The gallant 
little State,' as her citizens call her, was never 
known to be in a quiet condition and amiable mood 
for any length of time ; and her citizens glory in a 
revolutionary attitude. South Carolina may there- 
fore be left to assert her own claims to disorder and 
disloyalty ; but it is necessary to remind our readers, 
in the briefest way, that large assemblages, in the 
chief towns of the State last autumn, ratified with 
acclamations tho proposal to summon the citizens 
for a march upon AYashington, in case of Fremont 
being elected, to seize the Treasury, burn the ar- 
chives, and make the Halls of Congress resound with 
the din of actual war. Thus did South Carolina 
take up her position in defence of the recent corrup- 
tions of the Federal Constitution, in opposition to 
the Northern citizens, who proclaim their fidelity to 
the fundamental principles of the Republic. 

No revolution recorded by history has had a more 
serious cause or complete justification tlian is afft)r(l- 
ed by a sectional antagonism like this. Is it to be 
supposed that a sectional population yielding 2,000,- 
000 votes should grant to a rival numbering 1,100,- 
000 votes, (inclusive of the fictitious slave-suffrage,) 
power to bring slavery and slaves among the chil- 
dren of free labor? and, again, to carry off the 
children of free labor into bondage on a slave soil? 



62 

Can an}^ one for a moment believe that such a thing 
can happen ? 

What then, will happen? The North has the 
numbers, the wealth, the good cause, and the sym- 
pathy of Christendom. The South (meaning the 
dominant party in that section) is so poor in num- 
bers that the world at large will not believe the fig- 
ures of the census ; it is so poor in wealth that its 
annual convention of planters and merchants sends 
forth the same complaints, year by year, of want of 
capital and the high price of labor, on the very 
same page with threats of setting up steamers, rail- 
ways, colleges, factories, and a complete new litera- 
ture, whereby New York will be ruined as a port, 
and England supplied with cotton without any in- 
tervention of Northern capitalists ; threats that 
New England colleges will have no aristocratic 
youths within their walls, to be corrupted with 
vulgar notions of constitutional rights and the dig- 
nity of work ; while a bright day will open on the 
whole class of pro-slavery authors, whose worko are 
henceforth to suppl}^ the place of the literature of all 
past ages. The business of expurgating books from 
every other part of the world, and of creating a 
complete set of school-books suitable to the South, 
is actually confided to a committee, headed by a 
bishop, and chiefly composed of university men. 
The committee was to meet for consultation at Co- 
lumbia, South Carolina, on the 18th of May last, 
and work was meantime provided for it by the dis- 
covery that even ' Grimshaw's History of the United 
States,' a text-book in almost all schools, was not 
exempt from the taint of Abolitionism. Grimshaw 
say, ' Let us no longer declare by words, but de- 
monstrate by our action, that " all men are created 
equal," &c.' : and the organ of the Louisiana plant- 



63 

ers asks, on quoting this, ' Are such sentiments to 
bo instilled into the minds of our cliildren? If not, 
then banish Grinishaw's History from our schools 
and academies, jMen -will not regard them (the 
postulates of the Declaration of Independence) ; 
but they may warp the more impressible minds of 
uninformed and unreflecting childhood.' This ap- 
pears to us revolutionary in the highest degree, — 
that the fundamental principles of the Declaration 
of Independence should be regarded as warping the 
mind ! 

No hindrance has been offered to the Southern 
Bch erne of domestic policy; but it does not appear 
to be yet instituted : and the question recurs why a 
people 80 subject to disappointment, failure, and 
poverty within their own States, has thus far over- 
ridden a rival of ten times its own force. The an- 
swer is a sorrowful one. The South has a will, and 
the North has not, A common average of rigrhteous 
will on the part of the North would have preserved 
the Constitution, and dealt with the great anomaly 
long ago : but the only righteous will was in the 
aibolitionists, who are, and always will be, outside 
the political and the military sphere. If the North- 
ern heart and mind once fairly kindle at the altar- 
fire of the confessors and martyrs of the cause, every 
thing may be at their disposal as regards federal 
relations ; because all the power, except that of will, 
is (m their side ; but then the slave States must be 
regarded as delivered over to the horrors of a servile 
war, Haifa million of the slaveholding class will 
be at t'lie mercy of their ' mean-white ' and negro 
neighbors, from the hour when the North effectually 
repudiates slavery. The South would doubtless try 
the experiment of a military despotism in the seve- 
ral States ; but the loss of Northern aid, and of the 



64 

cotton market of Europe, would )3e fatal from the 
outset ; and they could not compete with the cotton 
growth of free labor. In short, such a position 
would be wholly untenable. To the next question — 
what else ? — there is no present answer ; and herein 
lies the unmistakable token of revolution, — not 
merely impending, but actual. The mist of the 
comet blurs every thing. We can only ask ques- 
tions, — and the first questions are, whether, if they 
wished it ever so much, the American people could 
now wait four years for such a reversal of parties as 
a presidential election may effect ; and, next, wheth- 
er the strife about slavery-extension can be suspend- 
ed for the fifteen years required for the reversal of 
the preponderance in the Suj)romc Court. There 
can, of course, be no such suspension of the vital 
social interests of daily life : and those who say 
most about waiting, best know that it is impossible. 
As for us, we decline to prophesy amidst so dire a 
confusion, and under the shadow of so black a thun- 
der-cloud. The one thing we are sure of is, that 
the old Constitution, laden with new corruptions, 
cannot serve and sustain the Republic. We believe 
that if a radical reconstitution is not immediately 
agreed upon, there must be a dissolution of the 
Union, — the slave States being subject to the curse 
of a military despotism, and the perils of a servile 
war. It hardly appears that there can be a question 
about this : but of the issue we cannot venture to 
vaticinate. Our trust is, that the Abolitionists 
will not abate a jot of that strong will which ren- 
ders them the real antagonists of the South ; that 
they will press on the more strenuously as the criti- 
cal moment discloses itself; and that, by upholding 
in the sight of all men the democratic principh-s 



65 

which first gave them a country, they may juptify 
that instinct of the highest minds in the Old World 
whifh has rt'c();j;n ised thorn, amidtst the depressions 
and oI)Beurities of a quarter of a century of adver- 
sity, as the ten righteous men who should save their 
city. 



APPENDIX 



Of all men living, the public journalist is the most 
liable to take a short-sighted view. Unless he has 
some moral century-plant in cultivation, his habit of 
living au jour le jour will be too strong for his judg- 
ment. This is true of journalists of all countries, for 
their sight adapts itself to the instrument throujjh 
■which they look, — whether it be, as in the United 
States, from one to four years long, — as in England, 
drawn out to seven years, — or as in France, length- 
ened, it may be, to twenty. 

Hence the common notion of the newspapers, that 
it is impossible for a foreigner to understand the in- 
stitutions and the political movements of the country 
not his own ; to which his eye is thought to be unfit- 
ted by an exclusive use of others ; whereas, if more 
impartial in his spirit, philosophical in his views, and 
sympathetic in his nature, he will be sure to see more 
clearly and appreciate more justly, from his higher 
exterior stand-point, than a native less qualified in 
these, the highest senses, whose eye is merely trained 
to look here and tliere witliin. 

The French philosopher, de Tocquevillc, — states- 
man, also, as well as traveller and pabliclste., does not 
hesitate to say — ' Uii etranger auquel on livrerait au- 
jourd'hui toutes les correspondences contidcntielles qui 
reniplissent les cartons du ministere de Tinterieur et 



68 

des prefecture?, eii saurait bientot, plus sur nous que 
nous-memes.'* 

Such an article as the one here reprinted by the 
American Anti- Slavery Society from the Westminster 
Review of July, 1857, brings de Tocqueville's remark 
forcibly to mind. The reviewer seems to have had at 
command American sources of information equivalent 
to the ones indicated by the French statesman. With 
a rare power of rapid generalization and correct de- 
duction, this writer shows the American people where 
they now are, as none among themselves have yet 
been able to do. Nearness to the scene of action en- 
ables us to append, in our reprint, a few microscop- 
ical observations, which in no wise affect the broad 
and just view presented ; and which, as the truest in 
our judgment yet offered, we deem it a duty to cii'cu- 
late as widely as possible. 

The reviewer errs in supposing that ' free negroes 
are excluded from slave States by law and usage, and 
in fact,' — as more than one half of the whole number 
of such persons in the United States reside at the 
South, notwithstanding the efforts made to drive them 
out ; but the slave States generally make it a penal 
offence for any free blacks from the North to attempt 
to reside on their soil, or to visit them for any purpose 
whatever — subjecting such as are caught to imprison- 
ment, stripes and fines, and in many instances, selling 
tliem on the auction-block to the highest bidder, and 
reducing them to slavery for life. 

The great majority of the Abolitionists are repre- 
sented to be 'non-resistants.' This is a mistake. 
Very few of them accept the doctrine of non-resist- 
ance ; though it is true that ' moral means are their 



* A foreigner who should be shown to-day the con- 
fidciitial correspondence of the ISIinistry of the Inte- 
rior and tlic chiefs of tlic dei^artmcnts, would soon 
know more about us than we do ourselves. 



69 

only weapons ' in carrying on the conflict "with the 
Slave Power. Unquestionably, the effect of their la- 
bors upon the niinds of the .slaves has been eminently 
pacific ; but it is an exag;5cration to say that, before 
1832, ' slave insurrections avevaycd twelve in a year,' 
though such were comparatively frcrjuent prior to the 
commencement of the Anti-Slavery movement. 

Gov. Wise, of Virginia, is }iot the author of the 
scurrilous phrase, ' greasy meclumics,' as apijlied to 
Northern artizans : it originated in the Muscogee (x\l- 
abama) llerahl. Still, it does no injustice to the s])irit 
or the manners of the fiery Virginian, and faithfully 
represents the contempt which is universally clicr- 
islied and expressed by the slaveholding lords of the 
lasli for Northern free liiborcrs. 

The Resolution quoted by the reviewer as having 
been adopted by the Legislature of New York, was 
somewhat modified, and rendered less defiant, prior 
to its passage ; but its presentation to that body by a 
joint committee was an act of great significance. 

The declaration, that the mere proposition to allow 
colored persons to vote at the polls, in Iowa, ' is a 
revolutionary act,' is an erroneous inference, because 
it is the constitutional right of every State to decide 
who of its inhabitants shall use the elective franchise. 
In Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts 
and Rhode Island, the colored citizens enjoy equal 
political privileges with the whites; and in several 
other free States, they are allowed to vote, under cer- 
tain unjust restrictions. 

The reviewer means to be understood, of coiirse, as 
speaking with reference to probable results, rather 
than in a literal sense, in the averment that, in con- 
sequence of her Personal Liberty Bill, ' Massachu- 
setts is at this moment actually not in the Union.' 
As yet, she avows her loyalty to the Union ; and she 
claims that her Personal Liberty Bill is strictly con- 
BLitutioual. But how her position is regarded south 



70 

of Mason and Dixon's line, may be seen by the fol- 
lowing extracts from southern journals. 

This is the language of the Louisville (Ky.) Jour- 
nal : — 

' The recent nullifying legislation of MaseachuFetts 
receives grave consideration irom every friend of the 
Union. It will lead to similar retaliatory legisla- 
tion on the part of the Southern States against her, 
and all other States following her examj.le. She 
and others will again retaliate against the South, 
and thus, by mere separate State legislation, all the 
valuable purposes of the Union will be destroyed, 
and in the opinion of none will it be worth preserv- 
ing. 

' Massachusetts cannot, under the plea of igno- 
rance, escape the imputation of having w ilfully re- 
nounced her allegiance to the Union, or, in other 
words, wilfully refused to perform her duties under 
the national compact. By the legislative counte- 
nance she has given to the thelt and robbery of 
Southern property, by the immunity she promises to 
tlie thieves and robbers, and by the official exalta- 
tion of the more prominent of the aiders and abet- 
tors of those thieves and robbers, she knowingly vi- 
olates all sense of propriety and justice, and hurls 
a presumptuous and vindictive defiauce against the 
whole South.' 

The New Orleans ricayune says : — 

' It is not in the South alone, outraged as every 
Southern State is, in its most essential rights, l»y the 
late legislation of the JMassachusetts Legislature on 
the Fugitive Slave Law-, that public opinion is ris- 
ing in indignant reprobation. All over the coun- 
try, the press, without respect to party divisions, 
speaks with singular unanimity of the disloyolty fo 
the Union, the disregard of the Constiiution, and 
the aggressive temper toAvards the slaveholding 
States, which are nuinifest in the spirit and letter of 
their atrocious law. Except now and then a furi- 
ous abolition oracle, like the New York Tribvne, 
Massachusetts has no defenders outside of her own 



71 

limits. From within these, too, wc are glad to have 
concnrrent voices, raised earnestly and eouraj^eous- 
ly, in protest against the ruling madness of the day, 
and heartily re-eehoing the denuneiations whieh 
come hack ironi all (iiiarters of the Union against 
the act by which the State has been placed in direct 
contlict with constitutional laws of Congress, and 
every eiti/.jn of the State wlio may aid in executing 
the law is put under the ban of disfranchisement, 
and almost of outlawry. 

' The matter at stake is no less than that of civil 
war, only to be avoided, unless the State recedes, by 
a concession, almost as fatal at once, that Massa- 
chusetts is out of the Union hy her own act, and the 
determination th.at she will be altogether foreign, if 
she will not be altogether loyal. The position she 
has been made to occupy is incompatible with her 
duties to the Union, and in derogation of the most 
perfect rights of other States in it ; and it is to be 
decided soon, in wliat way and how we cannot fore- 
see, whether slic is to l)e restored to iier harmony 
with the other States witliin the Union, or the 
Union is to sustain the inevitable shock of a sepa- 
ration.' 

This is what the Charleston (S. C.) Standard says :— 

' A correspondent of the Mobile Tribune recom- 
mends that every lawyer in the Southern States 
shall pledge himself to his lirethren of the bar and 
the community, that he will not aid in the collec- 
tion of any debt or claim for a citizen of Massachu- 
setts, in any court, until the act referred to is re- 
pealed. The Montgomery (Ala.) A/a/7 adopts this 
suggestion, and recommends it to the consideration 
of the Supreme Court now in session. The Mail 
also proposes that Southern bankers and brokers 
shall join in this movement, and refuse Boston paper 
for collection.' 

Hero is the action of a public meeting held in How- 
ard county, Miiisouri : — 

At a meeting of ' the people of Howard county,' 
Mo., irrespective of party, convened at the Court 



72 

House in Fayette, June 4th, the following resolu- 
tions, among others, were unanimously adopted : — 

Resolved, That we will patronize no merchant 
wlio hereafter purchases an^' part or parcel of his 
goods in Massachusetts, or deals in any of the wares 
or products of that State, so long as the present in- 
famous nullification laws disgrace her statutes. 

Resolved, That we earnestly recommend to all the 
citi/.ens of the slaveholding States to assist us in the 
good work of starving the knavets and fanatics of 
Massachusetts into honest, law-ahiding citizens, by 
patronizing the manufacturers of such States only 
as regard our constitutional rights. 

At an * immense meeting ' of the citizens of 13oone 
county, Missouri, held at Columbia, the following 
among other resolutions was passed : — 

Resolved, That the recent decision of the Supreme 
Court of Wisconsin, declarinfr the Fujritive Slave 
Law unconstitutional, and of no binding force with- 
in the limits of that State, and the passage of the 
Personal Liberty Bill, in defiance of the (.Governor's 
veto, by the Legislature of Massiichusetts, whereby 
the Fugitive Slave Law is practically nullified with- 
in tlie limits of that Commonwealth, are ularniing 
evidences of fanaticism, nullification and treason, 
calculated to foment discord among the people of 
the States, and ultimately to dissolve the Union. 

These extracts must suffice. Where such a spirit 
is cherished, 'it^is absurd to speak of any fellowship 
existing between the parties. One thing is certain : 
tho^rclations which the North sustains to the slave 
system of the South, under the Constitution, involves 
her in all its guilt, and much of its danger — from 
which she can extricate herself only by dissolving the 
Union, and organizing a free Northern republic. To 
this result events are rapidly tending, as indicated by 
the masterly article from tlie ]i'estminster lievietc. 




011 932 756 8 



